


How Did We Get Here? (I Used to Know You So Well)

by TeamRedhead



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (darkpilot transitioning to huxlo), (past hux/phasma), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bottom Kylo Ren, Doctors & Physicians, Drug Use, Falling In Love, Friends With Benefits, Friendship/Love, High School, Identity, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Relationship(s), Physical Disability, Physical Therapy, Psychological Trauma, Reconciliation, Reunions, Slow Burn, Small Towns, Top Armitage Hux, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 66,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamRedhead/pseuds/TeamRedhead
Summary: Ten years ago, Hux fled the town of Bar Harbor for a life on the West Coast. To a Hux teetering between adolescence and adulthood, the fisherman’s village, locked on an island in Maine, had been a prison. A decade later, he has no desire to go back to the place a boy named Caleb grew up; Hux left that name behind when he crossed the state line. The boy he once was is a stranger to him now, but Caleb Hux is about to learn you can’t erase your past, and home isn’t always a place - or a person - you get to choose.After a traumatic event, Kylo’s life is reduced to a parody of an existence. Disabled, bitter, and tired, he leads a solitary life, the days fleeting by in a constant haze of alcohol and pain. He prefers it that way; solitude is easy, and letting people in is a mistake he knows better than to ever make again. There was a time when he had dreams, when he believed in a bright future, of love - until that horrible day when one boy sent his entire world crashing and burning. Kylo doesn’t dream anymore; everything he ever wanted is long gone, and he knows better than to hope. And then that son of a bitch who ruined everything suddenly returns to the scene of his crime - sending Kylo’s world spinning all over again.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> In true Team Redhead fashion, we'll again by ignoring Hux' canon first name. In this story, our cast of characters will know him as Caleb, as will you.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Mention of past car accident, hospital setting, brief description of pain and injuries.

**Six years ago, November, Mount Sinai Hospital, Chicago.**

 

Kylo woke up to a world of pain. Every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire, his face felt like it had been split in half, and there was this horrible, throbbing, tearing pain in his abdomen. Something was very wrong with his right hip and leg, and his left arm felt… off. His back felt like it was made of concrete and sharp spikes, and just breathing hurt so much he felt like crying. Managing to open his eyes slightly, he had to immediately shut them again – the bright fluorescent lights above him too sharp for his eyes to stand. A gasp escaped him as he moved slightly, causing a new pain – this time as a cold wave – to run through his body, knocking the breath right out of him.

_What happened…?_

The last thing he remembered was the sound of tires screeching, trying to find purchase on rain-soaked asphalt, of metal making impact against metal, the sudden coldness in his blood as he realized he was going to end up in the middle of it - that his brakes wouldn’t catch in time to let him escape - but after that, everything blurred. He must have lost consciousness at some point. When? And how long had been out? How badly injured was he?

He couldn’t exactly sit up and have a look - he could barely lift his head - and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What if he’d lost a leg? What if he was paralyzed now? He was only 22 for fucks sake, this could not be happening! A whimper escaped him, just as the door to his room opened, and then a nurse - an older woman, with a kind face - came into view next to his bed.

“Hello, Kylo,” she said, compassion clear in her voice. “Glad to see you a bit more awake. Can you tell me how you’re feeling? You look like you’re in a bit of pain.”

“...yes,” he managed to croak out. “Hurts… everywhere.”

“Could you tell me, on a scale of zero to ten - where zero is no pain at all, and ten is the worst pain you could possibly be in - where your pain level is right now?”

“....Nine,” Kylo whispered - talking took so much energy, he was exhausted just from those few words.

The nurse nodded, and removed the blankets he had apparently been covered in so she could check on his bandages. There were a lot of those, he realized as he managed to peek down at himself. And where there wasn’t bandages, there were casts. And… And _metal things_ sticking out of him. Kylo felt himself go pale, hurrying to close his eyes as a sob escaped him. _Oh, this was bad!_

His nurse left to find the doctor in charge, and to find him some pain relief - because, as she said; if anyone in her entire career had been in need of some good painkillers, Kylo was the one. Kylo had dozed off for a while, his body too exhausted still to stay awake for long. When he woke up, the doctor was there, informing him of everything that was currently wrong with his body.

Severely injured. Had been kept in a medically induced coma for two weeks. Might not be able to walk again. Regular physical therapy sessions for the foreseeable future, would have to relearn a lot of things. Something about internal bleedings, nerve damage and pain relief. Something about head trauma, plastic surgery, knee prosthesis, metal plates and screws, muscle damage. Kylo would be in the hospital for a few more weeks, there were still things they needed to monitor, and they might need to perform more surgeries - they had contacted the person listed as his emergency contact, and he had come down from Maine a few days earlier to help sort the insurance bit, but couldn’t stay too long. Did Kylo have anyone else they could contact for him? Someone who lived closer? Kylo managed to mumble out Poe’s name, then the hefty dose of morphine just delivered via his IV kicked in, and everything became very fuzzy.

Fuzzy was okay. Fuzzy let him not think about the fact that he was 22, and his entire life had just been irrevocably fucked over. He had nothing now. No job - he was sure of that. No degree, no future. Hell, he wasn’t sure he still had a place to live - he was supposed to pay rent that day when everything went to shit. He had nothing, apart from a shit ton of pain, and a body that may or may not ever work properly again.

Once he was alone in his room, Kylo finally gave in to the tears.

 

\-----

 

**Present day, May, Hancock County Bar Harbour Airport, Maine.**

 

The _bump_ of the plane touching down on the tarmac roused Hux from a fitful sleep, his neck protesting the change in position as he straightened up from where he had been slouched in the corner of his seat. It wasn’t the smoothest landing Hux had felt in his life, and when he wiped his hand over the window, pushing aside condensation, he could see why. Outside, rain streaked down from grey, overcast skies as the plane - two rows of seats, not much more than a puddle-jumper, really - shuddered ominously again. _Welcome to Maine_. He shook his head, working out the crick in his shoulders. It was typical spring weather here, the kind Hux remembered from his boyhood - dreary and sullen, days spent inside when he would rather have been riding his bike or exploring the nearby woods, and Hux shivered even in the artificial humidity of the cabin, wrapping his cardigan tighter around himself at the tangible feel of time slipping away.

Ten years. It had been ten years since he’d set foot in Hancock County, but looking at the airport - with its aluminum siding long-bleached with snow and salt, the ‘A’ on the sign still slightly askew, never worth the trouble of straightening it - it might have been ten minutes. Some things never changed, and nowhere was that truer than in Bar Harbor. Time had always seemed to stand still here, arrested somewhere between the inviting darkness of the forest and the endless open of the ocean, the first 18 years of his life passing as if through the window of a slow-moving train.  

There was a time Hux had thought he would never leave, might grow old and die here, the way generations of his family had before him. As far as he had known, there had seemed no other option, no world outside of this - the fishing families who all but lived at the docks down by the water, the old men who shared coffee and tales at the cafes downtown and who claimed to know the woods that surrounded them better than anyone else. Perhaps they’d been born _in_ them, Hux had once thought - children of the trees and the moss who had only aged when they’d left its confines. All of it was bullshit, of course - but it had been enough to amuse him as a child, and he used to hoard the glimpses of them he caught through windowpanes that flaked paint as his father dragged him along to church on Sundays.

It had all seemed so right then, so familiar - the cold rains of spring that became the long, long days of a summer Hux now knew was quite short, with its vermillion sun rising and setting over the water, hanging there above the sails of fishing boats and boats meant for sport, chartered when the wealthy tourists came from the city. The smells of wet earth and air like salt-water taffy were the friends that had accompanied him into adulthood, and when Hux laid his head back against the cracked leather of the seat-rest and let his eyes close again, waiting for the announcement that he could remove his seatbelt, he could almost believe that Mr. Davis still worked the grocery counter at the general store in the town square. That he could head there for a handful of peanuts straight from the barrel. That, for him, they’d be free, as they’d always been, and he would fill his pockets, knowing he’d share them later with Ben down by the field hockey pitch, hidden under the bleachers-

And that was where the imaginings ended, as abruptly as they’d started.

Ten years. A decade was a long time, even in Bar Harbor. Some things never changed - but, Hux knew, some things did. And when the seatbelt sign finally flashed off to the tune of the flight attendant announcing they were free to move about the cabin, he shouldered the worn duffel that had been his constant companion for the past six years - the only luggage he’d brought with him - and didn’t look back.


	2. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Throughout the duration of this fic, there will, at times, be large amounts of profanity. Don't expect this to change - if anything, it will get worse.

“Phasma? Yeah, I’ve landed.” Hux shuffled the phone between his ear and shoulder, struggling to keep his duffel from slipping down as his arm as he did so. He hadn’t worn so many layers since he’d left Maine the moment his diploma had hit his hand, and the flimsy fabric of his windbreaker was quickly becoming sodden with the drizzle that was just relentless enough to be miserable. The flaps of his plaid woolen hat, which he pulled down to cover his ears, weren’t doing much to keep them from becoming frozen. Nothing would - not when it was this wet, and he found himself raising his voice so Phasma could hear him over the tires of passing cars on slick pavement. “Oh, the flight here was exactly the shitshow I’d imagined it would be. I think the only passengers were me, two guys in camouflage and _really_ orange caps, and a moose.”

“A moose?” Phasma’s voice crackled on the other end of the line, breaking in the middle of the word. The last time he’d used a cell phone in Bar Harbor, it had been the kind that flipped open, but it was no surprise service hadn’t improved since then. After all, it wasn’t likely the moose had much need for a cell phone, and towers were few and far between this far up north.

He sighed. “You’re going to have to speak up, Phas. The service here is shit - it’s like talking to you on an old tin can with a string tied to it.” The sidewalk was slippery, the soles of his shoes already squelching with every step, and it wasn’t long before he lost the battle with his duffel, the strap slipping from shoulder and down his arm, where it narrowly avoided crashing into the sidewalk - something that wouldn’t have done his laptop, tucked in the front pocket where it always was, any favors. Hux cursed under his breath. It may have been too far into the spring thaw to freeze - the rain could attest to that - but it was cold enough that his breath steamed in the moist air.

“The way you complain about the place,” she said, “you’d think you’d been sent once more unto the breach. If the breach was Mayberry, that is.” Even with her voice garbed through the phone, cutting in and out as it was, Phasma’s deadpan was unmistakable. It was one of the things Hux had loved about her from the very start - one of the reasons he’d thought marrying her might solve more of his problems than it would cause - and he smiled into the line as he scrounged in his pocket for the name of the rental car agency that he’d requested have an SUV ready for him, just in case the weather persisted and the roads got mucky, as they tended to do this time of the year. Once, when he was learning to drive, he and Ben had run off with Ben’s Uncle Luke’s old beat-up Volkswagen - they’d made it approximately halfway up Eagle Lake Road before burying the thing in the mud.

They’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get it out, Ben behind the driver’s seat and him shoving at the bumper while the tires spun and spun, only digging themselves in deeper. By the time Luke had showed up, Hux had been spattered with mud from head to toe and Ben looking very, very sorry. The two of them had only escaped grounding because it wasn’t his dad who found them - Ben’s Uncle Luke hadn’t given a shit about much back then.

Hux wasn’t interested in repeating the experience. There was a good chance the agency he’d rented the car from would still be the only one in town, as it had been last Hux knew, but you could never be too careful. Trust Bar Harbor to surprise him just when it would thoroughly fuck him over, leaving him stranded on its god-forsaken two-lane roads.

“Close enough,” he agreed, trying not to think on the memory. “I’ve only been here a few minutes, and I can already tell it’s just the time-sucking vortex it’s always been. This place is straight out of the Twilight Zone. You’ll fall asleep thinking you’ve spent five hours here and when you wake up, you’ll realize you’re five years older and you’ve purchased a bungalow three blocks down from the West Street Hotel. Two kids at the local elementary, the whole works.” Hux had seen it happen, more than once. The place had its own rules of inertia. Objects in Bar Harbor tended to stay in Bar Harbor; he was the first person in his family in _generations_ to escape it.

“Oh please.” Phasma let out an audible whoosh of breath, and Hux could almost see her pushing her bangs out of her eyes as she looked down at the stack of consult requests on her desk. It was four hours earlier in Los Angeles, which meant her day was just getting started - just as Hux’ would have been had he not been stranded in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Maine, hunting down the small-town lawyer that had had control of his inheritance since before he was born - and who now had control over his failing marriage. Hux didn’t remember where the man’s office was - didn’t know the address, or even if he was still alive. For all he knew, this was all a wild-goose chase, and the man was long dead. He’d already been balding and ancient when Hux had first been introduced to him as a boy; he had to be well into his eighties by now, if indeed he had hung around this long.

A Google search had turned up no results other than an unimpressed Yelp review dated six years earlier, so Hux’ guess was as good as anyone’s - his best hope that, if he couldn’t track down the man himself, he could at least get into contact with his two sons, who’d also, if he remembered correctly, gone into law. Chances were good they were still in Bar Harbor, just like everyone else; if he was lucky, he’d figure it out and be back on a plane to L.A. by the end of the week, before this place managed to get its claws into him again. He’d seen enough instances of the Bar Harbor laws of inertia to know it was a real possibility.

“I’m serious, Phas. If you don’t hear from me, send help.” His lips curling with affection around the words, Hux refused to consider how pathetic it was that the first person who’d come looking for him in the event of his disappearance in this hellish approximation of small town New England was a woman who would be his ex-wife by Memorial Day if all went smoothly. Already would have been if not for the small matter of this inheritance. The one he hadn’t touched since he’d received word of his parents’ untimely death, had all but forgotten about - and not by chance, by _choice._ The one he didn’t give a shit about, but that had apparently been part and parcel of the prenuptial agreement Phasma had been adamant they sign.

Phasma always did things by the book, so they’d went halvsies - everything right down the middle, which meant that, if Hux owned something, then by all rights, Phasma owned half. Even if the something in question was a home Hux had forgotten he owned at all and that Phasma had no interest in acquiring. He’d have given it to her no questions asked if he could, but whether she wanted a house she’d never seen on a piece of property on the other side of the country was beside the point. The contract had been signed; there’d be no divorce finalized without settling the matter, and wasn’t it just like his dad, to meddle in Hux’ life, ruining things, even from beyond the grave?

“Maybe I’ll just leave you there,” she retorted, distracted, and Hux could hear the rustling of paper just under her words as she flipped through to the next consult. “Be a widow rather than a divorcee. There’s no stigma that comes with being a widow, you know. It’s not my fault if my husband was lost in some poor New England town - it’s rather mysterious, actually, makes for a good story - but if we’re divorced, well, I just made a poor choice, didn’t I then?”

Hux groaned - it was suddenly difficult to remember what had made him want to marry her in the first place, though the low-hung sign by the road proclaiming the Bar Harbor Trojans the state track and field champions of 2005 wouldn’t allow him to forget. It had once been painted a vibrant green and white, the same colors found on a pair of sweatpants still tucked in the bottom of Hux’ chest of drawers, and he swallowed against a wave of something fierce and sour when Phasma chuckled into the phone.

“You don’t have to worry,” she said. “I’m not actually planning to lose you in Bar Harbor,” and Hux knew she meant it all in fun, but that did nothing for the fact that he could have happily hung up on her in that moment - and definitely not for the choked feeling in his throat.

Instead of giving voice to it, he rolled his eyes. “ _Goodbye,_ Phasma.” The words were short, clipped - a _fuck you_ without saying it in so many words. “I’ll call you when I’m settled in for the night.” Hux didn’t wait for her answer before ending the call with a click, the rain beating a relentless tattoo against the top of his head as he hurried across the street to the rental car agency whose name he’d scribbled on the scrap of paper from his pocket.

It was, indeed, still the only one in town.

\---

Hux and Phasma had known each other for nearly six years. Had dated for two. Had been married for one.

One, they had both learned, was more than enough - and not only because Phasma had discovered eight months into the marriage that Hux was gay, which was approximately two months before Hux had admitted it to himself. If Hux was honest about the whole affair - metaphorical, not literal, he’d never cheated on her - Phasma had every reason to hate his guts. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, had thought he loved her. _Had_ loved her, as much as he was able - in all the ways he was able. Still did, for what that was worth - which was more than he deserved, if the fact that she not only took his calls, but called to check on _him_ had anything to say about it.

Six years with Phasma at his side. Ten since he’d driven these streets, the corner of Ash and Park the same as it had always been, the street sign tinged with rust from the constant dampness in the air. Phasma hadn’t been his first relationship outside of Bar Harbor, but it was close. And before leaving, there had been only… well, there had been only Ben.

Ten years before, Hux had left Bar Harbor in a flurry of bad decisions spurred on by the need to _escape._ The town hadn’t always felt so claustrophobic - there’d been a time it had felt more like home than anything else, the lights coming on one by one over the pier at Frenchman Bay the first sign that he and Ben had stayed out too late and he’d better hurry if he didn’t want to catch hell from his dad - but as his eighteenth birthday had drawn nearer, the woods had closed in on all sides, the waves from the bay creeping up onto the sandbars until Hux could feel them lapping at his feet as his world got smaller. Bar Harbor had never felt more like the island it was than in those final months after graduation, Ben’s hand in his closing like a vice, trapping him there, holding him, a weight heavier than Ben had any right to be, and sometimes Hux had looked out at the bridge onto the mainland and imagined that it was one of those old drawbridges, the kind that closed up tight, trapping people on one side of it or the other.

Medical school had been his ticket away from all of that, one he’d grabbed at as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It was Ben’s stifling warmth - his open, goofy smile that would have needed braces had his Uncle Luke believed in things like modern orthodontics - or the fresh, open unknown of the world beyond the bridge, and Hux had made his choice, leaving this place behind him. Leaving _Ben_ behind him. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have said Ben was the reason he’d left; after several painful conversations with Phasma, he couldn’t deny he had played his part in it. Hux could picture his smile as well today as he could the last time he’d seen him, though Ben hadn’t been smiling then. He’d been yelling angry words, had told Hux to go ahead and fucking go if that was what he was going to do, fat tears on his cheeks collecting faster than Ben could brush them anyway. It hadn’t been the first time he’d seen Ben cry, but it had been the first - and only - time he’d caused it.

Ben was the first person he’d hurt like that, back before Phasma. Before everything, and Hux shook his head as he kicked the windshield wipers up another notch. His heart thudded in his chest at the thought of that last meeting, his hands on the steering wheel tightening along with his gut, his seat rattling up and down when he hit a pothole that he’d forgotten about but that still hadn’t been filled in. _God_ , Ben had looked beautiful that day, the sun in his hair, his cheeks sunburned like they were all summer, every summer - so happy when Hux had met him at the trail marker for his favorite of their hikes, sunflower seeds in hand. He’d had no reason not to be - Hux had given him no indication of what he was about to do.

In the end, the sunflower seeds had been scattered across the ground, and Ben was crying. Hux could have comforted him - had known all the ways to Ben’s heart at that time - but he hadn’t, and that, he thought as he pulled into the parking lot of Gott’s General Store, there was no taking back. Even if he saw Ben again - which he wouldn’t, he’d heard rumors he’d run off to Chicago almost as soon as Hux had left - there was nothing he could say. Nothing he was sure he even _wanted_ to say.

The old building had a new storefront, blue metal siding put up right overtop of the old wood Hux remembered, but the makeover had done nothing to make the building look any more like it belonged in this century. Typical Bar Harbor, he thought - even with the economic boom brought on by the influx of tourists, the general store was a bastion of a time before Bar Harbor had a place on the map of small towns to visit in coastal New England.

Still shaking his head, Hux slid out of the seat of the oversized cherry red pickup truck he’d been given at the car rental near the airport - the SUV he’d requested online had been mysteriously missing, and in its place was this monstrosity, a 4x4 with a bed big enough he could have hauled half of Bar Harbor if he needed to. A Dodge Ram complete with bar seats and a handle you had to use to haul yourself up into the cab if you didn’t want to end up on your ass, it had been either that or a convertible whose roof looked like it had seen better days. While Hux didn’t plan to do any heavy hauling while he was in town, he also didn’t want to spend the next several days with his luggage swimming in the backseat if this weather decided to keep up.

He had to give it to the Dodge, at least the thing had a powerful heater - but the jog to the store’s glass double doors was long enough to undo any good the heat flowing from its vents might have done. His clothing had just begun to dry off on the ride over, and he shivered in the fluorescent light of the produce aisle, still the one closest to the exit, with the counter just across.

Behind it stood a stranger - tall and gangly, he looked about the age to have been in high school, maybe a little older. Part-time help, maybe, and Hux did a double-take as the boy blinked owlishly at him, smacking his gum over the top of a magazine, acne scars on his chin. The place might have been called Gott’s, but as far as Hux knew, it had always been Mr. Davis who owned it. Hux had never seen anyone else man the counter in all the years he and his friends had used the store as a gathering place after school, Mr. Davis handing out handfuls of candy when no one else was looking - but maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. If Mr. Davis was still alive, he certainly wasn’t young enough to run any sort of business on his own anymore. For all Hux knew, the boy currently taking in his bedraggled state might have Mr. Davis’ grandson, returned from college for spring break.

The barrels of peanuts and sunflower seeds and various candies you could buy for a nickel or a dime if Mr. Davis didn’t give them to you for free, he noted as he walked by on his way to the microwavable meals, were still shoved against the same wall they always had been, their shiny metal scoops still hung on the sides, waiting for Hux to dig in. It wouldn’t be free for him anymore, of course, though maybe for this generation of Bar Harbor High’s track team - and he gave the boy behind the counter a pleasant nod of his head, which wasn’t returned, if it was even noticed.

Maybe he should grab a couple scoopfuls to take with him, Hux thought, staring into glass cases at rows of frozen food while a light buzzed on and off overhead - just something to have in the house that wouldn’t require cooking. He wasn’t counting on the condition of the kitchen in his family’s home - _his_ home now, and wasn’t that the reason he was back on an island he’d sworn never to set foot on again in the first place? With a sigh, he reached into the freezer to pull out a box of microwavable fish tacos, marked $3.99,  flipping it over so he could read the list of ingredients on the back, the first seven of which were unpronounceable. _Polysorbate 80_ \- he didn’t know what it was, outside of something from his undergrad chemistry course, but it didn’t sound appealing, and how the hell was he going to cook it anyway? He wouldn’t have any power, at least not for tonight. It was already going on 4pm, too late to have any hope of getting in contact with the electric company in Bar Harbor; that would have to wait until tomorrow.

So maybe he was eating out tonight, and he flipped the box back over in his hands, crystals of freezer-burnt ice flaking off to melt on the pads of his fingers.

“ _Caleb_?” The voice was so loud and unexpected that Hux started, slamming his head into the freezer door behind him, and he came up swearing and rubbing at the spot throbbing just behind his ear. He hadn’t heard that name in years - hadn’t heard it, in fact, since the last time he’d been in Bar Harbor, and it had been longer than that since he’d heard the voice that said it. Even a decade out, Hux would have recognized it anywhere: booming, overflowing with an infectious, easygoing sense of _things will work themselves out, let’s not trouble ourselves trying to figure out how_ that Hux had always envied, even as a kid. “You’ve gotta be _shitting_ me… Caleb Hux, back in good old Bar Harbor. Whoo-boy, nobody’s gonna believe this one.” When he let out a high-pitched whistle from between his straight front teeth, Hux flinched, closing his eyes and willing himself to anywhere but there, standing in the frozen food aisle of Gott’s General Store, trapped between the freezer door and Finn Martin’s perpetually smiling face - a spectre from ten years prior that he’d been hoping not to conjure.

Finn wasn’t a tall guy - Hux had had a few inches of height on him, even in high school, when he’d had a few grade levels on him as well. Still in junior high, Finn had been so crazy fast their coach had allowed him to move up to the varsity track team when he and Ben were sophomores, and he’d taken a liking to the two of them right away. The kid had always looked up to him, Hux thought, becoming a second shadow that followed him through the halls of Bar Harbor High when he started ninth grade and the three of them found themselves in the same school. Not that he minded; Finn had been a good kid, and summer had found he and Ben whiling away the days at Finn’s house, modest and warm and usually smelling of cookies his mom had made from a mix picked up at this very store, more than they did at either of theirs.

He looked almost exactly as Hux remembered him, a Bar Harbor Trojans baseball cap on his head, and his varsity jacket thrown over his shoulder, wearing muddied Adidas on his feet, his warm brown eyes laughing in that way they had that made Hux question whether he was laughing with him or _at_ him.

“Finn!” he said weakly, trying to shove the pitiful box of _Amy’s Kitchen_ fish tacos back into the freezer before his old friend could catch sight of it. “I - er, I - uh… hi?” He did his best to dart out of Finn’s reach, but Hux wasn’t quick enough. Finn had plucked the box out of his hand - the little shit had always been the faster of the two of them - and was looking it over before he could get his mouth to cooperate in finding something intelligible to say. Helpless, Hux rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, feeling the heat rising there even with the freezer door still open as he flushed red.

“Man,” Finn laughed when he was done with his inspection, the sound just as bright as it had ever been. He clapped a hand on Hux’ shoulder, jostling him, his smile widening to reveal bright white teeth. “Have you seriously been gone so long you don’t remember you grew up in a fishing town? The docks are, like, three blocks away from here. Frozen fish tacos? This is…” He shook his head. “I know some people in town have it out for you after you disappeared like you did, but this is just _sad,_ buddy.”

Hux snatched the box back irritably and shoved it into the freezer without looking whether it was in the right compartment, then let the door slam closed, preparing to defend himself - but again, Finn beat him to the chase.

“I can even show you the way, Mr. Big Shot Doctor. That’s what you ended up doing, right?” The man he had once thought of as his tag-along kid brother winked, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was being made fun of. “If you don’t remember how to get there, I mean. The streets haven’t changed much since you left, but you might’ve. I’ve heard stories of what city living can do to person.” Something he clearly hadn’t experienced for himself, Hux thought. It didn’t look like Finn had ventured outside Bar Harbor in all the years since Hux had last seen him. He’d even adopted the lilting accent of the people on the island who’d lived there all their lives - the one Mr. Davis had and that they’d poked fun at when they were kids. “If we can get you to the docks before the fishermen close up shop for the night, though, there just might be hope for you yet. There’s not much a few minutes with the ocean can’t fix.” He tugged on Hux’ windbreaker.

“Finn,” Hux protested, struggling to pull out of his grasp. When Finn finally let go, Hux crossed his arms over his chest and ran his hands up and down the sleeves, straightening them. “It’s my first night back in town. I’m staying at the family house. No power, you know? No cooking.” He shrugged, figuring that was as good an excuse as any to get Finn off his back so he could get the hell out of dodge.

“The family house? Yikes.” Finn didn’t take the hint, his eyes widening as he fell into step alongside of Hux. At the end of the aisle, he grabbed a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon - something they’d drank their fair share of when they’d been a bunch of teenagers who couldn’t get their hands on anything else - then threw a $10 bill and a handful of change on the counter in front of the cashier who shoved it into the register without looking. “I haven’t been there since-”

“Yeah, me either,” Hux agreed before Finn could finish, effectively putting an end to that conversation, and they started for the exit, Finn with his $10 beer, but Hux still empty-handed. Whatever he’d set out to accomplish at Gott’s, he hadn’t managed it. The only thing he’d figured out was that, once, talking to Finn might have come as easy as breathing, but not anymore. Now it was like navigating his way through a minefield. Blindfolded. “What’s with the - ah - the getup?” Eager to change the subject, he gestured to Finn’s hat and jacket. “Is there a game in town tonight?"

“The get-up?” Finn cocked his head, following Hux’ eyes to the patch over the breast of the letterman jacket he was shrugging onto his shoulders. “Ohhh, _this._ Nah, no game. I’m one of the coaches for the junior high track and field team, just headed to practice now, actually. It’s not a paying gig - just volunteer, but it’s fun. Kinda reminds me of the good old days, you know?” When Hux didn’t immediately answer, rubbing the back of his neck again, Finn scoffed under his breath. “Nevermind, I’m sure that sounds stupid, especially to someone like you. All washed up and holding onto my glory days, I guess.” This time, the smile he gave was a sad one. “But that’s just what we do around here.” And just like that, Finn turned on him, his eyes narrowing.

“What the fuck happened to you, Caleb?” he asked suddenly. That easygoing quality to his voice was still there, but it was strained, and Hux’ mouth twitched. He’d known it was too much to hope he’d find a way out of this question, but he hadn’t expected Finn of all people to be so direct about it. “There were all these rumors - some people were saying you were dead, that you’d never even made it to California, and at first I was like, ‘No way, not Caleb, he’d make it anywhere.’ But then there was that thing with Kylo and you didn’t…” Finn trailed off, holding the door open for Hux, the sound of the rain still steady on the pitted blacktop of the parking lot and the smell of the outside air earthy and deep. The sky didn’t show any sign of breaking.

“I’m sorry, man,” Finn said after a moment of terse silence that didn’t suit him at all, thunder rumbling somewhere far-off, probably back on the mainland. “I didn’t mean to push you. I know you just got into town, and you’re probably tired as shit. Now’s not the time - we can figure all of this out later.” When Hux shouldered past him, the 12-pack banged against his thigh, the sadness on his face lifting so easily Hux almost questioned if it had ever been there in the first place. “But listen, I can’t leave you to eat some _Amy’s Kitchen_ fish tacos that probably expired six months ago on your first night back in Bar Harbor. You know how bad Davis is about looking at the dates on those things.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, and Hux had no choice but to return the smile. There was something comforting about knowing the old man’s pride still wouldn’t allow him to admit he eyesight was too bad to make out the dates printed on the bottom of the boxes.

“I’m having a little party at my place tonight. Nothing big, just throwing some fish on the grill out back and all. Lots of the good stuff to drink,” Finn was saying. “You should come.” He followed Hux as he headed for the pick-up, right on his heels. “At least grab a bite to eat. It’d be good for you. Most of the old gang’s gonna be there. No pressure, no weird questions - I swear on the Maine State Track and Field Championship trophy of 2005.” The solemn way he covered his heart made it look like he was about to pledge his allegiance to the flag. “Consider it your _Welcome Back to Bar Harbor_ shindig.”

Hux froze, his hand on the door handle of the truck while Finn pressed a thumb to a beat-up key fob, the headlights on an equally beat-up Buick coming on a few parking spaces away. He didn’t know what Finn considered good stuff to drink anymore, but judging by the PBR in his hand, his taste hadn’t changed much since high school. Hux wasn’t impressed. If someone had asked him what the last thing he wanted to happen during his first hour in Bar Harbor was, this would have been it - and the worst part was that Finn was so damn _nice_ about it.

“Listen, uh, Finn. I don’t know-” There was rain falling in Hux’ eyes as he fumbled for a convenient excuse, but anything that came to mind sounded rehearsed. “Who knows what state the house is going to be in, and I’ve got some legal stuff to deal with. Divorce is a bitch, I’ll tell you what. That’s what I’m doing here in the first place. And… and jet lag, you know? I should probably just-”

“Like I said, buddy, no pressure,” Finn interrupted, saving him from making an even bigger asshole out of himself than he already had. He must have had enough of watching Hux flounder, because he reached over to open the door of the pick-up for him. “I’ve got practice in 20 - which is really gonna _suck_ if this weather holds - but if you decide you’ve got something better to do than spend the night holed up in that big old house alone, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the place. 120 Ledgelawn Ave. I think you’ll remember how to get there.” He winked for the second time in their short meeting, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“120 Ledgelawn Ave. Are you kidding me?” Hux said as he swung himself up into the driver’s seat, Finn leaning against the side of the truck watching him, seemingly unaffected by the rain. He knew that address as well as he knew his own. “You still live… isn’t that-”

“My parents’ place?” Hux nodded, Finn chuckling at his surprise. “Yup - well, mine now. They spend the winters down in Florida these days.” Finn’s hands were curled around the edge of the door as he popped his head inside, water rolling down the outside of the window. “See, now you’ve got no excuse not to come. The driveway’s a little muddy this time of year, but I don’t think you’ll have too much to worry about with this piece of work.” He gave the side of the truck an affectionate slap and, before Hux could argue that the thing wasn’t even _his,_ he was closing the door soundly and giving it a final rattle to make sure it had shut.

Hux stayed in the parking lot for a good ten minutes after Finn pulled away, the image of the sloppy salute he’d given him as he turned out of the parking lot weighing on his mind. That had been a trademark greeting of Finn’s - something he did whether he was saying hello or goodbye - and with the ballcap on his head, he could have been behind the wheel of his dad’s Oldsmobile, parked out back of the field hockey pitch with a trunk full of PBR, waiting for Ben and Hux to pack up their stuff and climb in. They used to drive it out to the outskirts of the woods, where you weren’t forced to hand over money to the National Park Service to enter, and pop the tabs on the cans under the cover of the trees. Finn - though he was younger than both Hux and Ben - had been the only one with a car back then, Hux’ home situation too tenuous to ask his dad about borrowing his old Ford.

The thought made Hux smile. He couldn’t the say the last time he’d thought of the boy who’d wowed the town by taking the state high jump competition when he was a sophomore, but Finn had been a good part of the reason they’d taken home the championship that year. The celebration they’d shared after was one of his best memories still - late spring, sometime in May, in that time right before graduation when the future had stretched out as endless and open as the watercolor painted sky. He hadn’t known he was going to leave yet, what was going to come in the months that followed, the sun setting over the ocean where they sat on the edge of the dock, dangling their toes in the water to let little fish nibble on their toes. It had been a warm spring that year, the night air humid and cloying, Ben sitting on one side, Finn on the other as they passed a beer between them, brazen, not caring who saw - the three of them high on their win, on their pictures in black and white on the front page of the paper, clipped out and kept by Finn’s parents.

They had been capable of anything that night, and while the lights of Main Street flickered off one by one behind them, Hux had brushed his lips against Ben’s neck and tasted victory.

With a sigh that moved his shoulders, Hux let his forehead bounce off the steering wheel, listening to the sound of the rain on the hood of the pickup. Finn didn’t understand - he couldn’t hang out in Finn’s backyard while he grilled fish like he was 17 and avoiding his dad again. Like there wasn’t a chasm of ten years between them. He couldn’t just _go back_ to all of that. That wasn’t how things worked, at least not outside of Bar Harbor. The people here might not have gotten the whole picture, but Hux did.

He wasn’t sure why the thought suddenly stung.

\---

The spare key to the house he’d grown up in was still under the same rock where his mom had kept it for as long as Hux could remember. It was a real rock, not one of those fake plastic ones meant for hiding things in, but the inside had been hollowed out so the key slid easily inside. Whether his dad had found a way of hollowing it out himself or his parents had picked it up off the shore, where years of waves and shifting sand had worn the inside away until it was smooth and rounded, Hux didn’t know. For people who lived in what was a beach town for five months out of the year, his parents had never had much love for the ocean. They might have, once, before he was born - now he’d never know. Maybe that should have made him feel something, but all that mattered to Hux was that they hadn’t suddenly decided to move the key in the years before their death. It was the only thing that had gone his way so far since arriving in Bar Harbor, and as his hand scooped it out around a handful of damp soil from a flowerbed long overtaken by weeds, he had prayed that maybe this meant his luck was changing.

With five bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a full formal dining room, plus a room dedicated just to drawing, the Hux family home was one of the better sized ones in Bar Harbor - as well as one of the oldest, the first owner on record dating back to the mid-19th Century. There was a chance it had been constructed even earlier than that, but the records only went back so far. Victorian in style, it had, at one point, been painted a sunny yellow, though after years left uninhabited with no one to look after it in the unforgiving salt air, the paint had begun to peel in some places, exposing a dusty grey underneath. A squeaky step on the stairs, a fan that no longer turned over adirondack chairs that he saw still rocked when the wind picked up. It was nothing a little sprucing up couldn’t fix, but that was a concern for whatever poor asshole was stupid enough to buy the place. Not Hux. He wasn’t out to see he got top dollar for the house he’d grown up in; he was out to get in, get it appraised, and get rid of it, so he and Phasma could split the profits and wash their hands of the whole thing.

Still, Hux could appreciate the old Victorian for what it was. Growing up, his favorite part of the whole downstairs had been the three large windows, taller than they were long, that faced the street, looking down from the wraparound porch. Like stairsteps, each one was slightly higher than the last, letting the sun into the living area in squares, so that the room remained well-lit, no matter the time of day. He used to think it would have been easy for that room in particular to be cheerful, the kind of place you might enjoy lemonade on a hot day in July, lying spread out on the floor until the evening cooled off enough to go outside - and that it must have taken some special skill on his parents’ part to keep it so miserable.

Around the side of the house, where the wraparound porch stopped, there was another window, higher up, on the second floor. There was nothing special about that one - it was small, square, cut into four panels, its frame painted over more than once so it didn’t open anymore. That was his dad’s work, who’d hoped to keep Hux from using it to sneak into his room, six hours after he’d been an hour late for his curfew, he and Ben climbing up the trellis and praying they wouldn’t fall, not because they’d break an arm, but because of what his dad would have done had he caught them. If he needed to, he could probably still find his way up without pricking his fingers on any of the thorns from the English roses snaking through the wooden patchwood, even if he wasn’t quite as in shape as he had been back then.

Inside, it was difficult to imagine the house at 40 Hancock Street had ever belonged to a pastor and his wife who lived by the adage “cleanliness is next to godliness.” The huge oak staircase, which led from the foyer up to the second story and was wide enough across to fit three people side to side, was coated in an inch of dust, one of the railings on the banister having unhinged itself and threatening to crash to the floor at the slightest movement. No longer would it support Hux’ heavy footsteps clunking down the stairs, one of his shoes still untied, when his dad’s voice echoed up to the first landing on Sunday morning, telling him exactly what was waiting for him if he was late for service again.

The wallpaper, too, was peeling - it would need to be replaced - but as far as Hux could see, none of the furniture had been touched. Everything from the writing desk to the couch that his parents had insisted was for ‘display only,’ not for sitting on, remained just where he remembered it - solemn and still, covered in drape cloths, so that when lightning flashed outside those three long windows, Hux was no longer alone, the room suddenly inhabited by ghosts of cloth and hardwood.

Hux jumped, scolding himself for being so damn ridiculous as soon as his heart had slowed down enough that he no longer felt like he was swallowing it. There’d never been anything wrong with the house itself; it was the people inside that had been the problem. If ever there’d been anything to be afraid of here, it was long gone now. With his parents dead, the place was no more than wood and paint and rock - unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t do anything for the chill that seeped in through the walls, the dampness heavy in the hair without any heat to burn it off already settling into his bones. The only thing that would help that was a fire, and the fireplace didn’t look to be in any state to start one; a quick inspection showed the chimney hadn’t been cleaned the last time it had been used, a bed of ash and suit stuck behind the grate.

When he pulled the cloth from an armchair he knew was more comfortable than the rest of the furniture, Hux was hit with a face full of dust that elicited a series of three succinct sneezes, followed by a string of three not-so-succinct curse words. His face was now as covered in dust as the banister, his eyes watering. There was no food in the kitchen and no way of cooking it, even if there had been. It was almost as cold inside as it was out, and he was pretty sure he’d just seen a mouse dart into pantry. (Well, he thought, the poor bastard was going to be disappointed.) He had no power and no distractions save for his shitty memories and he hadn’t even thought to swipe one of Finn’s PBRs when he had the chance.

Sure, Hux had expected the place to be miserable, but not _this_ miserable, a leak starting up in the ceiling just above the armchair to send a drop of water right down onto his nose, and he swiped at it angrily as he dropped himself into the chair, not giving a shit that there was even more dust on the cushions than there had been on the drop cloth itself. From where Hux was sitting, he had two choices: he could spend the night sulking, jumping at thunder and lightning and praying his phone battery held out until morning while he froze his ass off, or he could go… to Finn’s parents’ house. Finn’s house. Whatever. The place where there was the promise of a hot meal and at the very least a couple of cans of beer and a heater that actually worked. Maybe even somewhere he could charge his phone for a while.

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, sending up more dust.

None of that changed the fact that it was _Finn_ ’s house. Finn as in the only friend he’d ever known almost as well as he’d known Ben. Finn as in the guy who probably should have punched him in the face as soon as he saw him and, for all Hux knew, might _still_ want to. Finn as in the guy who’d always gotten on easily with every person he met, who attracted friends like the sea before sun came up attracted fisherman, who even as a kid had known everyone in town and who was inviting the “old gang” to his house for a fish-grilling party Hux hadn’t known about until two hours ago. That Finn.

No. No way. He couldn’t do it. Not in Bar Harbor. He wasn’t _that_ desperate.

\---

Finn’s porch was packed with people, couples sitting on the low white-painted concrete wall, their feet dangling out past the awning so their canvas shoes were speckled with rain. Some were sharing cigarettes, the misty weather giving their lighters hell and their ashes glowing red; others just looked to be talking, their faces close and breath steaming in the air. It was just past nine - still early, but Hux had known the party was going to be a big one when he pulled the tires of his newly acquired pick-up half onto a stranger’s lawn, the street already lined on both sides with cars and Finn’s gravel driveway something like a used car lot.

He should have known the entire population of Bar Harbor would show up for one of Finn’s parties.

The entrance to Finn’s place had been left open, the light spilling out from inside the screen door cheery and warm and reminding him of autumn, even though it was spring, and from as far away as his truck, Hux had seen the tea lights strung from the trees out back, their glow diffused by the rain and the evening. He had to admit it made a more welcoming picture than his family home, cold and dark and, he suspected, rodent infested. For a moment, Hux considered knocking, loitering just outside the door with his hand on the latch, while people he’d (thankfully) never met regarded him out of the corner of their eyes. Hux could read their faces. It was rare enough to see someone you didn’t know in Bar Harbor, but it seemed silly to knock on a screen, and there was no way fish was the only thing Finn was cooking because it smelled like heaven in there, like the best kind of comfort food, the kind he hadn’t allowed himself since he’d taken up cardiology and learned just what a whole stick of butter in mashed potatoes did to you, mixed with the cloying scent of a clove cigarette from outside - so it didn’t take much debate for Hux to push open the door with a squeak.

It was even more crowded inside than out, half a dozen people leaned up against the wood paneling of the hallway, propped up on elbows and shoulders. Someone Hux remembered playing first-chair saxophone in the pep band one year lifted a beer bottle to him, tilting it his way before taking another drink - Owen, he thought. Or maybe Orrin. In the end, he couldn’t decide and just nodded his head rather than risk getting it wrong, and Owen/Orrin went back to talking to a pretty girl who’d worked the counter at a convenience store outside of Tremont last Hux had seen her.

The line for the bathroom started somewhere around there, though Hux remembered it was tucked off the side of kitchen - which meant it was a hell of a line. There had to have been at least 15 people waiting to take a piss, all chatting as if they’d known each other their whole lives - which they probably had. He’d been unfair in thinking there might be only PBR at the party; in their hands there were craft beers from breweries Hux didn’t recognize, ones that had opened up since he had left, as well as some lighter stuff, Smirnoffs and the kind of premixed margaritas that came in a can. Nothing fancy, but no one seemed to mind the selection, the sound of too many voices talking at once fading into a happy-sounding but incomprehensible buzz.

Finn intercepted him as he wandered wide-eyed into the kitchen, an oven mitt on one hand and a pair of oversized tongs in the other. The air was warmest in here, potatoes on the stove close to boiling over, and he’d abandoned the varsity jacket he’d worn earlier in favor of an apron, his head bare now. He’d kept his hair short, the way he’d worn it in school, his forehead shiny with sweat from the grill.  

“Caleb, buddy, you came!” The smile that broke on his face was genuine as he pulled the oven mitt off with his teeth and tossed the tongs on the kitchen counter. It hadn’t been replaced since his parents had handed the place over, its surface the same off-white tile Hux remembered, a chunk broken off at the edge nearest the sink that had happened before Hux’ time. Above, an energy-saving lightbulb flickered when thunder rumbled again, closer this time. “ _Yes_!”

Hux offered up a half-hearted smile as Finn worked the apron up over his head, then hung it from a knob on one of the cabinets.

“Man, I _knew_ you’d show up. Chuck - you remember him, right? Sat to the right of me in freshman English, always wanted catch up with us after school over at Galyn’s, but Mitaka couldn’t stand him?” Hux nodded, though he could only conjure up a vague picture of his face, Finn digging his hand into the sink, which was stocked with half-melted ice. He fished around until he pulled out a beer with the silhouette of a man in a canoe on the can, then handed it to Hux, still dripping. “Well, he didn’t believe you would, said you’d bail and head back for the West Coast before you even unpacked. But Mitaka was right anyway, that guy’s a total dick. Whatever. Chuck’s not here tonight - his wife gives him a hard time about stuff like this. Truth is, I don’t think she likes him much more than Mitaka does.” He dried his hand on the leg of his pants, chuckling. “Mitaka should be here somewhere, though - maybe out back messing with the speakers? They were being iffy earlier.”

Hux popped the tab on his beer, then took a long swallow, his throat working. It was a classic IPA - hoppy, with a bite of citrus, and he smiled. It might have been a little early in the season for this type of beer, but somehow, without asking, Finn had known his tastes.

“Mitaka’s still around?” he asked, spinning the can around in his hand so he could pretend to study the information on the back, which detailed the short history of the brewery it had come from - a good-sized one out of Portland. Anything to look more casual than he felt. “I thought he was headed off to Bangor to study physical therapy or something. Must not have worked out for him if he’s back here.”

Mitaka had been a friend of Finn’s back in school - and by extension, a friend of theirs. A small guy, he’d barely reached Hux’ shoulder. Dark hair, pinched features, not athletic enough for the track team and with wire-framed glasses on his face, he’d tutored Finn in chemistry one year, then, once they’d gotten to know each other, tutored him in how to get his ass kicked in Mariokart. There wasn’t a game he couldn’t master on any console in a matter of days, and once he’d schooled both he and Ben thoroughly in Call of Duty, he’d more than earned his place as someone worth hanging out with. It didn’t hurt that his parents had owned Galyn’s down by the water, which became a hang-out for them, Mitaka’s dad always ready with a basket of fries when they showed up after practice - two squares of processed cheese melted on top, just the way Ben had liked them.

“Nah,” Finn said, looking at Hux oddly. “He’s got a practice right here, over on Newton Way, right in the middle of a bunch of houses. He just came back after he graduated.” There was more meaning in the words than Finn gave voice to, Hux fighting the urge to look at his feet. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but he couldn’t - not when Finn hadn’t accused him of anything. A moment of charged silence in a house overflowing with voices and then -

“Oh shit! How could I forget?” Finn snapped his fingers, any awkwardness immediately forgotten. “Kylo’s actually here tonight too! I had to drag him - don’t ask me how I did it. I feel like it might _technically_ be kidnapping, but yeah. No choice. He’s chilling in the back bedroom right now. I mean, it’s not really a bedroom anymore - more like a storage room. It’s kind of a work in progress, but it’s got a chair he likes and it was enough of a scene to get him through the door. I’m not gonna be the one to tell him where he can sit.” He clapped Hux on the shoulder again, just the way he’d done back at Gott’s. His hand smelled faintly of fish. “Man, he’s gonna lose his mind when he sees you!”

_Kylo?_ Hux pulled a face. The name didn’t ring any bells. It had been a while since he’d last made the rounds in Bar Harbor, but it hadn’t been _that_ long, had it? If he knew the guy, he was pretty certain he’d at least remember his name, but before he could ask who this Kylo person was and what he could possibly want to do with Hux, Finn was pushing him toward a door three-quarters of the way closed, then shoving him through it.

Behind the door, it was quieter than in the rest of the house - the music and voices from the main living area muffled, and the curtains drawn even when the evening outside them was so dreary it wouldn’t have made much difference had they been left open. It was so dark Hux could barely make out the outline of a person sitting next to an empty bookcase - tall, even sitting down, with a distinctive nose and hair that was either cropped short or pulled back - and he squinted into the shadows until behind him, Finn flicked on a lamp that threw a square of yellow light across a face scarred and twisted by annoyance.

“Finn, what the actual fuck? I fucking told you I-”

And then Hux’ world caved in, the floor tilting and the two sips of beer he’d taken burning their way up the back of his throat, because that face wasn’t one he was ever going to forget, whether torn in half by a scar that had nearly taken out his right eye or separated by 3,000 miles and ten years of bad blood between them. The person sitting in that chair wasn’t Kylo. It was _Ben._

\---

Kylo’s left knee was starting to feel pretty okay. _Fucking finally_. He’d stumbled a bit going up Finn’s stupid fucking front steps, trying to navigate through that sea of humanity that filled the entire place so he could get inside without being stared at by every single person in attendance. They were like ants, just covering every damned surface, their talk loud and annoying, the music even more so, and Kylo was nowhere fucking near drunk enough to deal with any of this. But Finn had begged him to come, had used those should-be-fucking-illegal puppy eyes, and they both knew that Kylo treasured their friendship too much to slam the door in Finn’s face more than maybe once a month. The fact that Finn had informed him he was putting a whole bunch of Kylo’s favourite seafood on the grill certainly helped, not that he would ever say that out loud. Hettie’s lasagna was probably the best he’d ever had, but even that got old when you’d microwaved portions of it for lunch and dinner for a full week in a row. Finn was a genius when it came to cooking seafood, and Kylo wasn’t stupid enough to turn down a high-quality meal when it was offered.

Besides, he knew that no matter how much he fucking hated these things, he actually needed it. He needed to get out of the house occasionally, see something other than his own four walls, pretend he was just another 28-year old guy. And the only two people who ever invited him to things were Finn and ‘Taka, and Kylo sure as fuck knew better than to risk their friendship - they were, sad as it was, pretty much all he had. If he had to be grumpy in public instead of at home once or twice a year, then he’d pay that price more or less gladly if it meant he kept his friends.

Maybe he could make an attempt to navigate his way to the kitchen - where there were more chairs and less people - and try to not ruin Finn’s party. _Again_. The painkillers had kicked in a little while ago, and he felt the inklings of the buzz from the alcohol, so there was a chance he’d be able to pretend he was a normal person for an hour or two, before getting Finn to help him retreat to the guest bedroom for the night. It was way too nice of him to offer it, really - but Kylo appreciated it nonetheless. His joints had been iffy all week, and while he could walk home, he’d be paying for it for days. He might get scolded by ‘Taka, too, and he’d really rather fucking not go through that. He might not look like much, but anyone who knew him knew that ‘Taka was really fucking scary when he got pissed off - he had enough fight in him for at least three people, and Kylo wasn’t about to go unleash that on himself.

But he didn’t get further than setting both feet down, starting to prepare to get himself out of the chair, when the door was thrown open, and someone turned on a fucking light. Finn. Of course it was fucking Finn.

“Finn, what the actual fuck?” he growled. “I fucking told you I’d come out when I was fucking prepared to - what is your fucking problem, you asshole?”

The tirade could have been much longer, they both knew, but his entire world started spinning as he caught sight of the person next to Finn. He’d recognize him anywhere. The same stupid fucking haircut, the same preppy fucking clothes, the same haughty fucking look on his face - ten years older, but still exactly the same. _Caleb Fucking Hux,_  the perfect little preacher’s son. Back in Bar Harbor. As if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t ruined everything for everyone and then waltzed out of here like nothing mattered. The anger constantly simmering under the surface reared its ugly head, and Kylo had to hold himself back from lunging across the room and strangling him. He knew he couldn’t do that anymore without harming himself in the process, but he was fucking willing to _try_.

“What-” he gritted out, eyes fixed on Caleb’s stupid mug. “What the fuck is _he_ doing here?”

Finn seemed genuinely confused by his question, and Kylo wanted to smack him. He looked between Kylo and Caleb for a moment, swallowing hard and rubbing his neck awkwardly.

“I invited him,” he said, smiling, as if that would help matters. “He just came to town today, and he’s staying in his parents’ house, and you know - no electricity or anything, so I figured I’d invite him over. I’m not the kind of guy who’s cool letting his friends go cold and hungry, you know that. And, I mean, it’s _Caleb_. Of course he’s invited!”

“It would’ve been nice of you to fucking warn me,” Kylo spat, “so I could’ve stayed at home and _not_ have had to drag my crippled ass halfway across this town, only to be faced with that cowardly piece of shit.”

“Whoa, wha-” Finn sputtered. “I just… I’m obviously missing something here, because last time I looked, the two of you were best friends. I know it’s been a while, but I just- I thought you’d be happy to see each other, you know?”

“You thought wrong.” Kylo glared at Finn until he looked about ready to hide behind Caleb. “Now, please, if you think you can manage it, get that carrot topped son of a bitch the fuck out of my face before I punch the fucker.”

“Carrot topped... son of a bitch?” Hux wasn’t sure why he chose that to latch onto in the stream of choice words Ben had for him, but that was what came out of his mouth, his eyebrows raising. Ben looked… well, in addition to looking like he royally wanted to kick Hux’ ass - which he probably deserved - he didn’t look much like Ben. It was the the bump in his nose that gave him away. Well, that and the marks on his face that Hux had once counted laying out under the stars the summer the two of them had discovered Acadia Mountain Trail and made it their mission to hike it once every day for two months. But even those were bisected by the scar. It had taken out a good chunk of his eyebrow, and continued down the bridge of his nose, right over the bump - maybe it had been broken in whatever the hell had happened to him, some kind of blunt force trauma, but with Ben’s nose, it was impossible to tell - to pucker the corner of his mouth.

All of that Hux could have looked at without flinching. It wasn’t pretty - the skin had either been stitched together by a surgeon who did his work with one hand tied behind his back or the initial injury had been so damning there’d been no hope of salvaging Ben’s appearance in the first place. But he was a doctor; he’d seen worse in residency, during his triage rotation. It was the look in Ben’s eyes that was hard for him to place as belonging to the boy who’d always kept a handful of sunflower seeds in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. Tiredness, definitely - the skin around them tight and drawn, bruised like someone had hauled off and punched him in the face, like he wanted to do to Hux now - but there was something more than than too. He was thinner than Hux had ever seen him, even though his Uncle Luke had had good reason for calling him a beanpole growing up. Ben was still wearing the hooded sweatshirt, though, one of his hands curled into the sleeve, like he’d always done, the other clutching the arm of the chair.

Hux wanted to ask if there were sunflower seeds in the pocket, but he was as far away from Ben now as he had ever been.

“Listen, Ben,” he said instead, wondering when Ben had learned to curse like that and if he’d picked it up just for Hux, just in case he ever saw him again. “I know you’re pissed at me - and I get it, I _totally_ do. I fucked up, but you’ve got to know I never meant to-”

“My name,” this new Ben snarled, “Is _Kylo_. It’s four fucking letters, you assbag. I’m sure even _your_ narcissistic cesspool of a brain can process that. But, in case you need some encouragement...” He fixed Hux with a glare that made the one he’d just levelled at Finn pale in comparison. There was violence lurking in it, and a very unnerving preparedness to turn talk into action. “Say that name one more time, and I swear to god, I will break your goddamn face. Do you understand _that_ , you backstabbing fucking asswipe? Or will I have to show you?”

“You spend the last ten years coming up with that?” Hux grit his teeth. There was a sudden itch under his skin that made him want to _fight_. He’d didn’t like the thought of throwing a punch at Finn’s party, but if the two of them had to take this outside, he’d do it. Because seriously - fuck this guy who called himself _Kylo_. Sure, he might have broken Ben’s heart, might have left him in maybe the worst way possible after being too chicken, too stupid and scared, to give a name to their relationship in the first place. But if he owed anyone an apology for that, it was Ben - and whoever this Kylo was, this guy who hid himself away at parties and barked at Finn who’d never done a damn thing to deserve it and looked like he’d just gotten off a three day bender, he sure as hell wasn’t Ben. “Or did you just steal it from that kid whose ass you threatened to kick for me in sixth grade?”

Hux would offer Ben the apology when he ran into him, after he thanked him for scaring that kid off in the first place. Ben might have been scrawny in school, but that hadn’t stopped him from backing him up against the lockers and standing as tall as his impressive height allowed, the tips of his red sneakers touching the other boy’s toes. While the display had saved his Hux’ reputation, this stranger he didn’t owe the effort it took not to kick him in the shin, and he put himself in front of Finn, so that it was the two of them who were toe to toe, slamming the beer he’d been holding down on one of the bookcase’s empty shelves.

“Oh, there’s more where that came from,” Kylo smiled. It was the absolute furthest thing from a nice smile. It was cold, and venom, and violence, and something very close to unadulterated hate - and the way it made his scar stretch the skin across his face didn’t help matters; it was like looking at the love-child of The Joker and Twoface. “How about this: you self-absorbed, spoiled, treacherous, pompous, whiny, hypocritical little bitch. Look at you. Went away to college, did we? Rebel against Daddy Preacher, while still letting him pay for the whole ride, and look at you now - you look exactly the same. You think dressing like a fucking Nordstrom’s ad is gonna hide the fact that you are nothing but a huge load of fucking poison? Hm? You think you can just waltz in here ten years down the road and think you know shit about people here? Then again, isn’t that what you always do? The world revolves around Caleb Fucking Hux, and he’s the only person who matters. The rest of us were just toys for you, huh? Something to pass the time? Newsflash, you shithead - no one’s gonna buy it this time. Try it, and I’ll fucking murder you.”

Hux inched closer, the skin at the back of his neck prickling and his hand flexing, opening and closing, at his side. He shook it to keep the fingers from closing into a fist.

“You’ve sure got a lot to say for someone who hasn’t heard a word about my life since he finally got out of his crazy Uncle Luke’s place. Last you knew, the only dream I had was taking the 300 meter run at state.” And taking Ben’s virginity under the guise of camping, slotting his dick up between his thighs and stroking Ben clumsily but feeling like the smoothest guy in Eastern Maine. Both of which he’d achieved that summer, though now he wasn’t so sure why he’d been so hung up on the latter. “Face it: you don’t know a goddamn thing about me anymore, _Ben -_ not anymore than I know anything about that grudge you’ve apparently been nursing for the better part of ten years. That’s unhealthy, you know - you should look into that. So before you go telling me what I should have done with my life, maybe it’s time you take a look in the mirror. Take a minute to consider why you ever thought it was cool to expect me to tailor mine to yours.”

“Yeah, because asking not to be stabbed in the back and then ditched like last week’s garbage is obviously asking you to ‘tailor your life to mine,’ Kylo snapped back. “But I guess you just proved my point: everything’s always about _you_.” He laughed. It was a hollow sound; icy, bitter, cynical. Then, as abruptly as the laugh had started, it was gone, and the air in the room felt charged, spiky, crackling with anger and _intent_. “But if you want your ass kicked so badly, I’ll be happy to help!”

He moved quickly, reaching for something, and then a lot of things happened in the space of one moment. Finn jumped in between the two men, shoving them both back in an attempt to create distance between them, and Hux took half a step forward, ready to lay into this person, whatever his name was - Kylo or Ben or something else. Then Kylo’s hand was taking hold of what he had been reaching for, a jolt of shock running cold through Hux’ blood as Kylo hauled himself out of the chair by _putting all of his weight on a cane,_ which caused Hux to stumble back to avoid tripping him.

His movements were swift, practiced, as if he’d been doing it day in and day out for years, but there was a stiffness to them. Strain in the lines of his body, just as there had been in the lines on his face, the ones that still didn’t age him a day. And when Kylo took a lurching step into Hux’ space, his gait uneven, that was when he became Ben again. Ben, that time the two of them had spent the afternoon working on hurdles after practice had been called on account of the weather. The day was rainy, the track slick, and their coach had warned them against it, saying one or both of them was going to break an ankle and he didn’t want to be the one responsible for it when they did. But that hadn’t done much to deter them with an important meet hanging over their heads two days later.

Neither of them had broken anything, but Ben had sprained his right ankle but good that day when his foot skidded out from underneath of him during his landing off the second hurdle.

His right ankle had swelled up to the size of a small basketball, and he’d had to hobble through the school hallways for days - and had not only missed the meet, but had been forbidden from showing up at practice for weeks after that. It had hurt Hux to even look at him - so much that he’d even carried Ben’s books for him to the classes they’d shared, propping his ankle up on the desk in front of him and glaring at anyone who looked like they might try to swipe it for themselves. This time, however, Hux didn’t think offering to carry Ben’s books was going to go over quite so well.

Hux recognized the cane as one he’d often seen leaving the doors of rehabilitation services, or on the elevator on the way up to the ninth floor, where the physical therapy department was housed. Or, more often, in the hands of his elderly patients, whose hips and knees had been replaced more than once. The model was a basic one - grey, a wide rubber knob on the end to prevent slipping, with an ergonomic handle worn from the places Ben’s fingers fitted against it. He’d been using the thing a long time; even without the handle, the curve in Ben’s spine, the way his body had shifted to accommodate the position the cane required of him, would have told him that. The cane was not a temporary accessory - Ben had been hurt, and hurt badly, in a way that wasn’t going to heal. An accident, he thought, studying the way Ben held himself, the places he subconsciously protected, where the damage was the worst, as he tried to piece together what might have happened.

There was something wrong in his knee, that much was obvious. Surgery, maybe? Pins and screws that did their job in holding the joint together - probably the only reason the leg hadn’t been amputated - but in turn left it all but immobile, and for the first time since early in his residency, Hux had to look away from an injury.

He’d heard stories about how it was different when the patient was someone you knew, how that weakened even the strongest stomach, but Hux had never imagined it would do such a number on him, the fists his hands had made uncurling to fall limp at his sides.

“Kylo,” Finn was saying, steady but gentle. “Come on, buddy, not now. This is not the time for you two to be starting shit, okay? Just back down a bit, buddy, come on. I won’t argue against you having reason to be mad, but you need to calm down a bit. Come on, deep breaths, count to ten. Let it go.”

“I ain’t ‘starting’ shit,” Kylo sneered. “I’m delivering some fucking payback - _he’s_ starting shit.” Then he noticed how Hux’ gaze kept going to the cane and the heavy way he was leaning on it. “And what the fuck are you staring at? Never seen a cripple before?” he snarled, about to take another step forward, despite having Finn’s palm pressed firmly against his sternum.

Hux side-stepped Finn’s hand, all trace of anger gone, leaving only a deep tiredness in its place. What the fuck had _happened_ to all of them? Finn was living in his parents’ house with the same crummy yellow paper on the walls that had been out of style when they were teenagers, Hux soon to be divorced before he turned 30, the Ben who’d been able to run a 5K without breaking a sweat reduced to someone who couldn’t have run the length of Finn’s driveway. Once, Hux remembered, he’d believed the world began and ended at the Bar Harbor city limit sign, and that it had all been at their feet.

They could have been anything, and instead, they’d become _this_.

“God, Ben, no! I-” he swallowed hard, his heart hammering, wanting to reach out but unable to bring himself to even look at the way Ben’s leg still bent at an odd angle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… no one told me. Are you… what happened?”

“None of your fucking business!” Ben spat, shoving both Finn and Hux aside with surprising strength, and then, before Hux could say anything else - could offer to help - he made his way out the door, even the thump of the cane’s rubber tip sounding angry against the floorboards. When Ben had stood, Hux had doubted his ability to navigate the narrow hallways of Finn’s old bungalow, much less get himself down the worn concrete stairs that led up to the porch, but when Hux drew back the shades on the window, Ben was already struggling his way down them, the grip on his cane white-knuckled, the muscles in his arm tensing as it took all of his weight, and his face scrunched up in concentration with every careful fall of his feet.

Hux almost went to follow then - the stairs were slick, as the track had been all those years ago, and Ben couldn’t afford a sprained ankle now the way he could when he was 16 - but Finn’s hand landed on his shoulder. His grip was firm, keeping him right where he was even when Hux tried to shake him off.

“Let him go, buddy,” he said, joining Hux in watching Kylo out the window. “Don’t worry, he does that - it’s normal. We just have to give him some space. He doesn’t mean it, not really - just needs to be alone for a while. Kylo, uhm, he doesn’t like to talk about what happened, and, well, he kinda takes it personal when people ask, you know? Just let him go - he’ll be fine in a bit.”

_He’ll be fine in a bit._ Hux snorted disbelievingly and retrieved his beer can from the bookshelf, taking a deep swig, then swishing it around in his mouth, still watching after Ben even after he’d disappeared from view. Ben wasn’t fine and he wasn’t ever going to be. None of them were.

Outside, the rain fell harder as if in agreement.

\---

That night, Hux sat on the single bed in Finn’s back bedroom, the mattress squeaking under his weight. It hadn’t been used in a while - the room itself smelled slightly musty, kind of like Finn’s parents had when they lived here, and there was a fine layer of dust covering the blanket, though Finn had done his best to brush it off when he showed Hux inside. He hadn’t planned on spending the night, only having a few drinks, so Hux hadn’t brought his toothbrush, nor anything to sleep in, but Finn had provided him with both when he’d refused to let him return to a house without power or heat, proving that even if Ben wanted him dead, at least Finn didn’t. Yet.

Hux wasn’t sure it was much warmer in the corner of Finn’s house than it would have been back at his family’s place. The radiator didn’t work very well back here, hissing and spitting, and the chill refused to evaporate, seeping in through the cracks around the window and clinging to the ugly yellow walls. As Hux pulled Finn’s old varsity sweater over his head, he relished the warmth, the way the inside was beginning to pill from being washed one too many times. It was a little big on him - Finn might have been shorter, but he’d always had a stockier build - so he drew his hands inside the sleeves, picking at one of the pills until the little ball of fuzz detached itself and he could hold it between his nails.

When he flopped back onto the bed, the mattress gave another groan, the lights of passing cars casting shadows over the floorboards as Hux arranged the two pillows Finn had given him behind his head. He laid wide awake after that, his eyes tracing the line where the wall met the ceiling from corner to corner, the border a deeper yellow and decorated with fish. It was silent now, the last of Finn’s party guests long gone - just the sound of the radiator and a clock ticking in Finn’s kitchen to keep him company.

Hux had been sleeping alone for a couple of months now, in the office down the hall from the room he’d once shared with Phasma. It didn’t bother him - and here he even had a bed, rather than a leather sofa too short to let him stretch his legs out that was doing a good number on his back. There was no reason that he shouldn’t have passed out the moment his head hit the pillow. He’d been at the airport at 6am that morning, but when he finally closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around himself, all he could see was a plate of cheese fries and a swollen ankle and the way the tendons had stood out in the arm that held Ben’s cane when he hauled himself down the stairs.

Sleep didn’t come until a couple of hours after that. On a misty Friday night in Bar Harbor, the waves pulled away from the sand, ushering in low tide, while teenagers all across town snuck back into their parents’ houses, holding their breaths until they knew they hadn’t been found out, the way it had played out for generations - and all the while, Hux looked up at a familiar-unfamiliar ceiling and tried not to think of sunflower seeds.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back! Thank you for joining us on our second adventure with these characters - we're excited to share it with you. As it stands right now, it looks like - much as in Empire - the chapters in this fic will be quite long. There is no expected update schedule as of the publishing of this chapter. Both halves of Team Redhead are currently very busy with things required by real life, so while we will try not to keep you waiting too long, the span between updates may be longer than you saw last time.
> 
> As with our last fic, we'd love to hear what you think, as well as address any questions you might have. (Trust us, we're experts on Bar Harbor at this point.) You can either drop us a line in the comments or reach out to us on tumblr, where Loke is still at ficlet-machine and Cat is still at thegoodlanniser.


	3. Downpour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that from this point on throughout the course of this story, Kylo will think of and refer to himself in particularly unkind ways, using words and phrases that are known to be harmful. This is indicative only of the way Kylo views himself and says nothing of the way we or anyone else view his character.
> 
> Trigger Warning: Alcohol mention, drug use.
> 
> In this chapter, a character with a very broad Scottish accent is introduced; her dialect may at times take a second read-through to fully understand.

The weather didn’t subside overnight - if anything, the rain got colder and more steady. By the time the sun came up, there was no way to tell, the sky was so grey, shrouded in low-hanging cloud cover, and the air that puffed out between Hux’ lips froze to hang, suspended, out in front of him. The street lights hadn’t yet turned off when he’d sneaked out Finn’s door, the glow around them hazy and the smell of wet dirt rising from the ground, and jogged down the front steps, dressed in a hoodie he’d stolen off the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen and the same sweat pants he’d slept in the night before. It was so early Hux was the only one out, as far as he could see; on each side of the street, the windows on the houses were as grey as the weather outside, the cars parked next to them quiet and unmoved in their driveways.

Hux hadn’t planned to go jogging - it was a miserable day for it, the drawstrings of Finn’s hoodie heavy and wet, slapping him in the face every time his feet pounded the pavement, the hood pulled up around his ears, its grey fleece darkening in the rain - but he’d started near every morning off with a run since he was 14 years old, only skipping it when the weather made it impossible or he was in a hotel in an unfamiliar city. And even then he’d headed to the treadmill to do his jogging there.

He’d learned early on that was when he did his best thinking, the rhythmic motions of his feet slapping on pavement allowing him to turn events over in his head, make sense of them. He might not have been able to run away from his problems, but somehow they seemed less taxing with the tang of sweat on his tongue - and if ever he’d needed to make sense of something, his surprising reunion with Ben Solo was it. Maybe it would have gone differently - better, with less yelling - if he’d been more prepared for it, he thought, reaching a comfortable but steady pace as the muscles of his legs stretched themselves out. Nothing too strenuous. His heart rate was rising, his cheeks growing warm even in the morning chill. He counted his breaths. If only he’d _known_ what had happened - maybe then he wouldn’t have stuck his foot in his mouth right out of the gate. He’d at least have had a chance. _Goddammit,_ why hadn’t Finn said anything?

He couldn’t have really thought Hux was such a piece of shit that he’d heard what happened and not cared enough to call and check that Ben had survived, could he? He might have had enough of Bar Harbor, but Ben was still _Ben_ , for god’s sake.

Ben had been _the_ defining person in his life, the one by whom he measured all others, even when he’d been too damn fool-headed to know it. Every story began and ended with Ben, the boy who’d lived a couple of streets down, in that small, strange cottage his uncle owned, crystals hanging from the windows so that, on sunny days, there were rainbows thrown across the little stone path from the little white gate his uncle had never remembered to close. The boy Hux used to pass easily in short sprints, laughing as he left Ben in the dust, hands already on his knees when Ben crossed the finish line, but who had kept pace in long distance events better than anyone Hux had ever seen, running laps around him as if there was nothing that tired him out. As if the well of energy in that willowy body knew no bottom. The boy who had stolen Hux’ first gold medal, his first kiss, his first fuck - with a ceiling of evergreen trees looking down on them and twilight mosquitos buzzing close to their necks. His first _everything._

Even Phasma had noticed (though he’d left out those last few details when he told her stories of his childhood in Maine), questioning how he’d had time for anything else when he’d spent all of his time with Ben. He’d told her then he was like the brother he’d never had. What he hadn’t told her was that he hadn’t _needed_ time for anything else back then because he and Ben had found plenty of activities to occupy the long hours of summer.

Hux had slept on the couch that night - he’d never been a very good liar.

There weren’t any sidewalks on Ledgelawn, so when a lone vehicle passed - another truck, rumbling along with its bed of wooden planks rattling at the potholes - he was forced to take the shoulder of the road, his shoes occasionally squelching in the unmanicured grass of lawns left uncared for, weeds sprouting up around garden gnomes with missing noses and other patches still bare and brown, where the snow had piled up in the winter. Finn’s wasn’t an affluent avenue, the blacktop laid unevenly, cracked by the changes in the weather and patched over so many times that it had become bumpy and uneven, and Hux’ next step landed him in a puddle that had collected in a dip in the pavement, splashing water up into his shoe and soaking his sock.

_“Fuck!”_ He skidded to a stop, bending his leg to take his shoe in hand, balancing there on one foot while the rain fell and fell and fell and an invisible sun marked the morning. It was going to be uncomfortable for the rest of the run now; he’d only made it as far as the intersection with Otter Avenue, but his foot would end up pruny and blistered if he kept it up for much longer. Hux had wanted to run the block at least, see what was new and what wasn’t on the streets where he’d learned to ride his bike. Still, he had _some_ sense; he’d be stupid not to turn back now. If he went back the way he came, there would still be a chance Finn hadn’t woken up yet and that he could slip out the door and back to his truck before being roped into any more conversations he wasn’t ready to have - which was enough to convince him.

On the way back, walking now, his sock bunching up with every step, he considered what might have happened to Ben - and not just physically, but inside, where the scars must have run even deeper than the ones on his face. Hux’ hood was becoming sodden, and he pulled it down, letting the rain soak his hair and run down his cheeks as continued his trek back to Finn’s place. Were there other scars Hux hadn’t seen yet? He imagined the answer was yes - he’d known as soon as Ben stood from the chair that there was steel in at least one of his legs, possibly both, and that meant surgery. And surgery meant scarring - probably significant, too, judging by the size of the apparatus that would have been required to piece him back together had either of Ben’s legs been completely crushed. Which the odd angle his left knee still took whenever he put weight on it suggested.

Hux licked his lips, tasting rainwater. Some nerve damage, too, he suspected. Ben relied too much on the cane for there not to be, and there’d been something unsteady in his hands. If he wasn’t already in physical therapy, he should have been - hadn’t Finn said Mitaka had made it as a physical therapist? He should have been there to help. And what was Ben doing for pain management? It had to be significant, even now, which would account for some of Hux’ reception if that leg was still giving him shit, but Hux could consult Phasma about that. She was a rheumatologist, but that was close enough. She knew her way around people who were hurting.

Not that Ben would want his help. Or Phasma’s, once he realized who she was.

Hux shook the water from his hair, taking the steps up to Finn’s porch two at a time. His friend hadn’t done much cleaning up after the party. Beer bottles lined the cement wall, half-filled with rainwater, while what must have been a local stray cat licked at fish bones collected on a congregation of cheap paper plates still piled in the corner. It scattered when Hux came close. Cigarettes, too, had been stubbed out and collected in an old coffee tin, leaving streaks of ash along the white concrete. They floated there now, smelling stale, but when he eased open the door to Finn’s house, praying that it wouldn’t squeak, the scent inside was as warm and welcoming as ever, the heat from the radiator immediately raising goosebumps on his skin as he pulled the hoodie over his head.

There was a light on in the kitchen, over the table - Hux could see it from the hallway. He would have liked to make his way around the room with having to go in and face the possibility Finn was as much of an early riser as he had been in high school, but there was no getting to the guest room where he’d slept last night without crossing the kitchen first. So it was with resignation that he toed off his shoes and took his socks in hand, wringing them out before poking just his head inside the doorway. Inside, the scent of brewing coffee was strong and the sound of rain beating against windows installed back in the 1950s soothing.

Finn sat at the table, his ankles crossed and his feet bare. He was dressed in jeans growing thin at the knees and an old white tee-shirt that looked worn and soft, the light above still buzzing in the grey of the morning, and Hux cleared his throat, looking sheepish.

When he looked up, Finn nodded his head and pushed a mug of steaming coffee that matched his own across the table.

 “Sit down.”

 ---

When Kylo woke up, it was already almost 10am - as the clock on the wall above his worktable informed him - meaning he’d either slept right through his usual alarm or had had the presence of mind last night to turn the fucking thing off. He was still in the clothes he’d worn the day before, the ratty old woolen blanket from the couch wrapped around him in a way that felt more like a straightjacket than a cover, and he felt absolutely disgusting. But getting out of bed was going to take a while, he knew, because right now he could barely even move for the pain. He should have taken his first round of meds two hours ago, so no wonder it felt like he was being torn in half.

Millie chirped from somewhere below the bed, and a second later she had jumped up - with more grace than her body should be capable of - giving him gentle little headbutts and making inquisitive noises. She always knew when he was in pain, and tended to be something like an especially large, furry bandaid on him until he’d managed to get it under control. Not that he minded; his fat old tabby was his baby - it was the two of them against the world, and Millie was probably the only person he could count on to not have ulterior motives for anything she did.

“I know, girl,” he smiled, kissing her on the head. “I know. Missed my meds again, didn’t I? Gonna feed you in a moment, I promise - just gotta figure out how to move first.”

She gave a pleased _mmrreow_ , and curled up on the pillow closest to the wall behind his head, grooming his hair and seeming rather fucking content with life. Well, good thing at least one of them was.

It took him another half hour to get his meds safely into his belly - he always kept them and a glass of water right next to the bed - and then another half hour to get out of bed so he could make it to the shower. It was slow, and he had to lean against things for extra support, but he _really_ fucking wanted that shower. The walk home in the rain without his jacket, the fitful, sweat-soaked sleep when he got home (and promptly downed a good portion of the nearest bottle of Jack he could reach before collapsing in bed with his shoes still on) - all of it left him feeling all kinds of filthy and disgusting. He could smell the sweat on himself, the remnants of cigarette smoke and fried fish in his hair, and he was a lot more invested in the concept of personal hygiene nowadays than he had been in college, when he’d spent most his time neck deep in the mosh pits at his favorite punk shows, or in other guys’ beds (or both). Most of all, though, he wanted to clean every last trace of the encounter with Caleb off his body and mind.

If he was honest with himself, he was still reeling from it, still trying to sort out _what_ had happened, trying to come to terms with the fact _that_ it had happened. Caleb. Back in Bar Harbor. The ghost of Christmas past, back to haunt Kylo’s piece of shit existence. Fucking great. He should have punched the fucker. He really, really should. Maybe kicked him in the balls or something, too, for good measure and all that. Fucking narcissistic pile of shit.

The shower was like a little orgasm in itself - he managed to get the water to just that right temperature, and Hettie had helped him find that shampoo he liked, the one that was almost always sold out, and he even felt steady enough that he managed to get himself off while he was in there; that boneless, post-orgasm state always helped his muscles chill the fuck out for a while. Having learned from experience, though, he knew blowdrying his hair and shaving away whatever hint of stubbles he might have grown since yesterday wasn’t gonna happen. Too much energy wasted, and right now, what he needed more than anything were his softest clothes and some proper goddamn coffee. He needed to brush his hair, and that always took forever, and then he needed to go over his inventory - like he had intended to the day before, when Finn had turned up and nagged him into going to that fucking party.

He knew he was running low on silver wire, and he was clean out of rock crystals and citrine. And if he was out of citrine, then he was most definitely out of a lot of other stones as well, because that wasn’t exactly a stone found on his list of best selling things. The tourist shop had put in another order for his rings and pendants again, and he figured they were stocking up in preparation for tourist season. Not that Kylo minded; his stuff sold like nothing else, though he couldn’t really see why. There were several other designs of his that were far better, but for some reason, those things sold like beer at a punk show - providing a very welcome contribution to his very... _modest_ income. Yeah, he’d need more raw material to cover that order, which meant he also needed to go over his books some time during the weekend, just to be sure he could afford it all and still be able to feed himself and Millie.

But hey, at least those were activities he could perform sitting down. While drinking. It was a real win-win situation, really.

He tried to focus on that as he got Millie fed and got the coffee brewing for himself. A quick look in the fridge informed him that Hettie had snuck a loaf of pre-sliced white bread in there so he could make toast. How she’d managed that, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t the first time. And why she put it in the fridge was something he’d just given up trying to question at this point. After a short argument with his stomach, he managed to make and eat a piece of it while he waited for the coffee to finish. But as the remnants of warmth from the shower began to be replaced by the usual chill of his house, Kylo felt the pain starting up again. Goddammit. It was gonna be one of those days then, huh? Fucking spectacular. Well, there was nothing for it, he knew that well enough by now.

“You know what, girl?” he said as he poured himself a large mug of coffee, hating himself for the way his brain wondered if Caleb had learned to drink coffee yet, and then forcing himself to think about something, _anything,_ not related to that scumbag. “I think we’ll have coffee, and I’ll brush my hair, and you leave the brush the fuck alone, and then we go back to sleep. Today’s cancelled. ‘Taka’s gonna have my fucking head if I don’t rest up after that walk home yesterday, and I don’t have fucking time to catch a cold or shit like that either. Whatcha say? Sounds like a plan?”

She chirped at him, and continued devouring her wet food. Kylo chuckled. Millicent never turned down an opportunity to stay in bed all day with him, and they both knew it. But as he made his way slowly back out into his living area, he took one look at the bed and the rumpled sheets, and decided that the couch might be the better option today. It would feel a little bit less pathetic to be curled up on that, watching shitty TV, than to be under a bunch of covers, and probably sweat a ton and undo all the effort he made with the shower. Besides, the TV helped him to focus on something that wasn’t the stupid, annoying, painful, unnecessary, unwelcome, weird fucking thoughts his brain seemed hell-bent on bombarding him with. Putting his mug down and retrieving his brush, Kylo carefully sat down and turned the thing on. There was some sort of house makeover show airing, and hey, it was better than nothing. As he began brushing out his hair, Millie came and joined him - chasing the brush as he worked it through the lengths of the still damp strands.

Last night had been too damn weird for his liking, and by weird he meant ‘painful and confusing,’ but hopefully Finn would know better than to come knocking for a few days. ‘Taka, the poor fucker, always got the worst hangovers - even when he’d only had a few beers - so he wasn’t likely to show up today or tomorrow either. And on Monday, Kylo knew, he had people coming in to do something with the floors at his practice, and ‘Taka tended to hover when people did things in his space. Yeah, Kylo should, hopefully, be left alone - save for Hettie’s daily visits - for a good three or four days, at least. Good. He’d had his fill of social interactions for a while. Now he just had to hope that no one fucking told that goddamn asshole Caleb where he lived. This place was bad enough as it was without that son of a bitch turning up and making shit worse.

 -----

Finn made a good cup of coffee. It was stout without being bitter, and so hot the first gulp had scalded his tongue. Hux usually took heavy helpings of cream and sugar, but when he looked around Finn’s kitchen, he didn’t see any, so he chose to take it straight rather than risk opening his mouth to ask for some, wrapping his hands around the steaming mug and refusing to meet Finn’s eyes. They’d been sitting in the kitchen for a good five minutes, neither of them saying a word, the clock ticking above them and empty beer bottles spilling out of a drawstring bag in the corner, waiting to be taken out to the recycling bin. Finn’s dog - a black lab-looking kind of mutt with big, dark eyes and plodding paws - had his head in his master’s lap.

When Hux chanced a look at Finn’s face, he didn’t look angry. He was reclined back in his chair, head tipped back with his eyes closed, humming a little under his breath, his fingers drumming on the top of the table as he ignored the mutt in his lap, and Hux gathered his coffee mug closer. The sight made Hux draw in on himself. He wasn’t sure if he felt guilty or ashamed or simply out of place sitting there, invited, in the kitchen of someone he’d let down, who hadn’t demanded an apology or even asked for one, and he cleared his throat softly, the mutt lifting his head to look at him.

“It was a - uh - a great party,” Hux said, smiling crookedly when Finn opened his eyes and put his hand on the dog’s head to shush him. “You always did throw the the best parties. Me and Ben could never rival them, not that parents ever woulda let me anyway. Should have known you’d still be the most popular guy in town.” He was still wearing Finn’s sweatpants and a tee shirt Finn had pulled from the bottom of his dresser that said _Acadia Deep Sea Fishing and Lobster Tours_ on the front. It smelled like mothballs, and Hux wrung his hands together.

“We’re not here to talk about the party.” Finn sat up straighter in his chair, working the kinks out of his back and stretching his arms above his head, dislodging the head in his lap. He still didn’t look angry as he used the toes of one foot to scratch the ankle of the other. “Though it _was_ pretty great, wasn’t it?” His lips bowed into a smile. “I’m thinking of renting out the community center for the Fourth of July - make it a real blow-out. You know put out the corn hole set, see if Mitaka’s parents’ll cater. Fries and those fish bites they make, you remember those, the whole-”

“Finn,” Hux interrupted, shaking his head. “I’m not going to be here for the Fourth of July - just for the week, maybe not even.” Finn’s old metal coffee pot let out a gurgling sound as Hux drained the dregs out of the bottom of his mug, saving himself from having to say more. Disappointing Finn was just as hard now as it had been when they were kids.

What he’d said was enough - Finn’s smile fell. “The week?” He looked like he was turning something over in his mind, chewing his lip. “Well, that doesn’t give you much time to fix this shit with Kylo, does it? You’d better get your ass in gear if you want a snowball’s chance in hell at convincing him to have a damn thing to do with you. Seriously, one time I forgot I was supposed to pick him up to take him to the post office, and I don’t think he forgave me for a whole month.”

Hux was silent. What could he say? He hadn’t considered that he might be able to salvage things with Ben. _Kylo._ Whether or not he wanted to help him didn’t really matter one way or the other; it was pretty clear Ben didn’t want help, at least from him. And who could blame him after the way Hux had fucked him over? No, the best thing he could do was slink back to L.A. and forget he’d ever seen the way Ben lifted himself out of his seat like a man three times his age, leave the poor guy with at least a shred of dignity.

“You _were_ planning on trying to patch things up with him, weren’t you?” Finn said after a moment, getting up from the kitchen table to refill his mug. When he gestured in Hux’ direction, Hux nodded, and he took his mug too, leaning against the counter while he filled them both to the brim. “‘Cause Cal, I mean it, you can’t leave things like this.” There was a pleading quality to Finn’s voice he’d never heard before, even when he’d first come to Coach Long, before Hux had known him, begging for a shot on the varsity team. Hux had whispered in Ben’s ear and they’d both laughed when Finn, hardly pushing five feet then, promised he’d be able not only to keep pace with the rest of the team, but outrun them - it had only taken one practice for Finn to prove them all wrong. “Me and you and Kylo, even Mitaka later on - we were a _team_ , man. Do you even remember that?” Hux looked away, biting the inside of his cheek.

“The four of us against the world,” Finn continued, unwilling to let it go. “That’s just how it was. God, for three years, we _ran_ this town. How about that Halloween when Kylo helped you sneak out and my dad was using the car, so the three of us had to pile into that old Volkswagen his Uncle Luke kept? That thing only started like half the time and the inside was filled to the brim with all kinds of shit - most of it probably illegal, god it smelled weird in there - but we did it anyway, Kylo pounding on the dashboard the whole time to keep her running, until we’d hit every haunted house in town? Made all the actors shit their pants before they could get to us. You can’t tell me it doesn’t feel wrong letting that all go.”

When he set Hux’ mug in front of him again, Finn planted his hands on the table and leaned down into Hux’ vision.

“Be honest,” he said, looking Hux straight in the eye. “It feels like shit, doesn’t it? You did this once already, you know. How’d that work out for you? You really think you wanna do it again - when Kylo’s right down the road, waiting for you to dip out again and prove him right about what a dick you are?”

“Finn!” Hux slammed his fist down on the table, his voice rising. Coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug. “Goddammit, when are you going to realize you’re not sixteen! Ben and me are almost _thirty_ and you’re not far behind - we don’t run this this town anymore. Hell, we aren’t even those kids anymore. We’re _adults_. Whatever, you’re trying to get back, it doesn’t exist. Things change; _people_ change. That was ten years ago!”

By the time Hux had finished his rant, Finn looked sad, a shadow crossing his face, and he returned to his chair, the old mutt on his heels, looking for a lap to lay his head in again.

“Yeah,” Finn admitted, once he was sitting again. His hit had landed, Hux knew, but it was a hollow victory. Finn was smarting from the barb, the hurt evident in his sullen agreement. “Yeah it was. It was ten years ago - and you know what? For some of us, it still feels like yesterday. Not everyone can lock those years away like you. God, Caleb, I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but Kylo was in _love_ with you, man. You broke his heart. Sure, the accident changed him - but he was different even before that, right from the day you took off.” Hux knew he was looking for a flinch, a sign that Finn had managed to get under his skin too - and it worked. He stiffened as if he’d been struck. “You shoulda seen him after that. He tried to play it off like it didn’t bother him, like you leaving here was no big deal - but you know how he was back then. Couldn’t hide his emotions for shit, and when he decided to get the hell out of here too, no one was surprised.”

Hux had spent a long time convincing himself that that wasn’t true. Sure, Ben had been hurt. Sure, Hux had told him he loved him once, not long before, blurted it out as they were both getting dressed, shaking the dirt off of their jeans before they pulled them on, the sun through the trees dappled on Ben’s bare shoulders - but they were teenagers. Loves came and went as often as the waves washed up on the sands; theirs wasn’t any different. Ben would forget about him as soon as he had another light-haired boy’s interest to fascinate him, another boy’s freckled hand on the fly of his pants.

Hux had never quite believed it, but it had been close.

“Listen, as far as I’m concerned, you don’t owe me any apologies,“ Finn said, when Hux opened his mouth to explain himself. “Shit happens. I missed the hell out of you, Caleb - but now you’re back and you’re here having coffee at my kitchen table. That’s enough for me. We’re even steven - you’re not going to hear a word about whatever happened between us from me. You,  and I, we’re starting with a clean slate.” From anyone else, Hux would have looked for a hidden meaning to the words, but this was Finn, and Hux knew he said exactly what he meant. “Kylo, though? You owe him something. An acknowledgement that you fucked up, at least - and you’re not gonna feel better until you do it. I can see it in you, the way you hold your shoulders like they’re all tied up in knots.” Finn gave him a knowing look, and self-consciously, Hux relaxed them, leaning back in his chair. His shoulders twinged in protest.

“See, they’re telling you what you need to do.” Finn had seen, and he wagged a finger at him. “You need to listen to your body, man - it knows what it’s doing. But I’m telling you now, if you’re not going to listen to that, you’re going to listen to me. You need to put this thing with Kylo behind you. _Both_ of you. Make up with him, even if it kills you. And it just might - Kylo holds a _hell_ of a grudge - but you’ll feel better for it.” His hand was on the dog’s head, ruffling its black fur so that it stood on end - Finn looked as casual as could be, bare feet on the cheap linoleum tile floor, but Hux had hardly ever seen his face look more serious.

“Honestly,” he said, “I’m not as worried about how it makes _you_ feel as I am about what something like that’ll mean to Kylo. Don’t get me wrong, you’re my friend and I don’t want these things dogging you, not after all these years - you deserve to get this stuff off your back too - but you’ve gotta understand, this isn’t _about_ you anymore. This is about Kylo, and I’m not telling you to go over there and kiss and make up-” Hux flinched, his face scrunching up as if someone had given him a good slap. No one had ever said it out loud before, what existed between he and Ben. Had ever acknowledged that their friendship went anywhere beyond shoving each other off the pier when one of them got too mouthy. That had been off-limits, back then, even if it was the town’s worst kept secret - but Finn looked right through Hux and his lies now, rolling his eyes.  “Oh, come on, Cal. You guys kissed. _A lot._ I wasn’t blind; you were like two feet from me half the time. Once time I’m pretty sure you had your hand in his shirt. Did I ever say anything about that? Did you _think_ I would say anything about that?”

There was no answer Hux could have given that wouldn’t have insulted the backbone of the friendship the three of them had shared - of course he and Ben had kissed a lot. And that was just the start of it - they’d made it all the way around the bases and back home one summer before the end of June. Of course Finn had known. He wasn’t an idiot, and it wasn’t like they’d been very good at keeping their hands off of each other when they’d been sixteen and drunk on the flood of hormones that ran hot in the muggy Maine summer. If Finn had only saw his hand where it shouldn’t have been the one time, he hadn’t been looking very hard. He and Ben would have said then that they were being careful, but careful at sixteen looked a hell of a lot different than careful at thirty, and Hux felt a flush of shame on his neck that he’d ever believed he had to hide from Finn.

“Why do you think I socked that Clark kid?” Finn asked then, while Hux was busy chewing the inside of his cheek. “You know, Kyle - got him right across the jaw when he started giving you and Kylo shit. I saw the way he looked at you. At Kylo. That shit’s not right, man. It’s not cool.”  He shook his head. “Don’t you get it? I don’t _care._ I don’t care what you and Kylo got up to out in those woods. I wouldn’t care if you got back into it right now. What I care about is the fact that that _meant_ something to him and you left him high and dry.” Finn reached around the back of his chair, feeling behind him as he continued to speak.

“So here’s what you’re going to do,” he said, his fingers catching on the fabric of a jacket that had been left hanging over the chair back. It was plaid - a royal blue Hux liked cut with lines of black, or the other way around, with sleeves that were dingy from being rolled up around someone’s fingers and a large zippered pocket on the front. The jacket looked well-worn, though he suspected it had been of good enough quality when it had first been purchased, and Hux wondered if it belonged to Finn. If so, he had gotten it with the sleeves cut for someone whose arms were much longer. “You’re going to stop making such a big deal out of it. So you wanted to do more with Kylo than run track? Okay, that’s out on the table. No surprises there. Now you can focus on what’s important: getting your ass out of that chair and out of my sweatpants and heading down to Kylo’s place, where you’re going to think of something to say that won’t piss him off even more.”

“Finn, I-” Suddenly that second cup of coffee sat heavy in his stomach, his mouth opening and closing. “What the hell am I going to say? He was ready to kill me last night, and I barely said three words. You think me just showing up at his house is going to go any better?”

“Well, they were the _wrong_ three words,” Finn responded, shrugging, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Ben hadn’t been ready less than 24 hours ago to beat Hux to death with an orthopedic cane. “But you’re getting ahead of yourself. First you’ve got to even get through the door. It’s not always easy. That’s where _this_ comes in.” He held out the jacket, and cautiously, Hux pulled himself out of the chair, taking it by the loop of fabric it was meant to hang on and looking at it as if the thing might gnaw his hand off. “It’s Kylo’s. He left it here when he stormed out. If I know him, he’ll be wanting it back - but he’ll be too damned stubborn to say anything about it with the way he left here last night.”

Now that he looked at it up close, the jacket resembled one Ben had worn as a kid - warm enough for early spring or late autumn, if you wore a hoodie underneath of it. Hux knew that because he’d stolen that one more than once, when Ben had left it tossed in the backseat of Finn’s dad’s Oldsmobile, and he stood frozen, remembering, turning this new jacket over in his hands, tempted to bury his face in the fabric and see if it still smelled the way he remembered.

“You really think this is going to work?” Hux asked, balling it up in his arms instead. He knew better than to expect it would, and yet… it was always the _what if’s_ that got you. “What if he just takes the jacket and slams the door in my face?”

“Eh, he might.” Finn laughed, turning his hand over so the dog could lick his palm. “But you’ll never know unless you stop hiding out in my kitchen, crying into your coffee, and take yourself down there. His place isn’t far - walkable when we’re not having weather like this, though you were crazy enough to be out jogging in it, so maybe you like that kind of thing. He lives out on Cleftstone Road, right where it meets Eagle Lake.” Finn went quiet for a moment. “The driveway’s kind of a bitch, though,” he added, after some thought, “so if you decide you wanna drive like the rest of us, be ready to drop into four wheel drive when you make that turn.”

There was no arguing with Finn when he got like this. He’d already made up Hux’ mind for him, in a way that somehow didn’t even seem pushy. Finn was sneaky like that, and there was a part of Hux - a small, frustratingly optimistic part - that said maybe that was a good thing. After all, Finn might have warned him against saying something to piss Ben off further, but Hux didn’t really think that was possible. Ben already wanted him dead. It wasn’t like he could make things _worse_ between the two of them, could he? So he might as well take his chances where they came. If this all fell through, he’d only be in Bar Harbor a few more days anyway, and there was no guarantee he’d ever be back. This was likely the last time he’d see Ben in his life; it was now or never. But before he did anything, he had to ask, he had to _know-_

“Finn,” he breathed. “What happened to him?” Hux had begun walking to the guest bedroom, but he stopped in the hallway off the kitchen, hovering there, the question the one that had been stuck in the back of his throat since last night. “Ben, I mean. It had to have been bad. I’m guessing at least three surgeries on the one leg alone, and then there’s his _face_. God, he’s lucky he still has his eye. That doesn’t happen in some minor-”

“Nu-uh,” Finn put up a hand, stopping Hux from going any further as he laughed good-naturedly. “You’re not getting that from me. I _like_ living. That’s Kylo’s story to tell, and believe me, if he wants you to hear it, you’ll know.” There was a beat of silence, Ben’s jacket still balled in his arms. “Oh, and Cal?” Finn waited for Hux to duck his head in his direction before finishing. “Here’s my first tip: don’t call him Ben.”

 -----

 “Ach, love, ‘avin’ one of ‘em bad days again, huh?”

Kylo, who’d dozed off somewhere halfway through that makeover show, opened his eyes to find Hettie’s face hovering above him, startling him in a way that made him ache in at least three places. He was curled up awkwardly, not quite sitting, not quite lying down - but some weird sort of middle ground between them - one leg bent up close to his chest, the other one stretched out off the couch. Millie was like a lead weight on his hip, and he’d managed to do something really iffy with his left shoulder - and that wasn’t even to mention his neck, which felt like it might have snapped in half.

“Fucking hell, Het,” he grumbled. “You tryin’ to gimme a heart attack or somethin’?”

She just laughed, used to and pretty much completely unaffected by his temper, and gently helped him sit up properly. As much as he tried to hide the pain, she knew all the signs, and before he had a chance to even really react, she was handing him his next dose of painkillers.

“I ‘eard tha’ Martin lad threw a party las’ night, so I figured I’d better go check on ye - an’ I think tha’ might’ve been a good idea,” she said as she helped him into a hoodie. Kylo hated days like this, when even getting into his clothing was a lesser ordeal, but Hettie managed to make it feel a lot less humiliating. “I would’ve asked if ye ‘ad t’ much t’ drink, but I kno’ it takes a godawful lot to get ye t’ tha’ state. Ye didnae walk ‘ome, didye?”

Kylo kept his gaze fixed on the floor, and that was answer enough, it seemed. Hettie nodded to herself, letting him choose if he wanted to have the conversation or not. Kylo fiddled with the sleeve of the hoodie for a while, then let his hair out of the bun he’d gathered it up in, only to make a new one that wasn’t really any less messy and tangled than the previous one. Feeling that fucking horrible electric, tingling sensation beginning to crawl around inside his legs, he got himself to his feet so he could at least pace the worst of it off. Fatigue was heavy in his body, making his legs weak and shaky, and he hated it. Hated, hated, _hated_ it.

“I, uhm, I didn’t really wanna go to that party to begin with,” he said, throwing Hettie a glance as he passed her. “But you know how Finn is, and I’ve stood him up like, I dunno, ten times already this year - and it’s not even fucking June yet!” He moved in a small elliptic shape, from his bed, to his work table, to his bed again - his feet so used to the pattern he didn’t even have to think about where to put them. It was a wonder he hadn’t worn tracks in the floor yet. “I just… Yeah, I walked home, okay? I left my jacket behind, and no fucking way am I going back there to get it until- until that piece of absolute _pig shit_ that Finn shoved in my face has left town.”

“Tha’ pile o’-...” Hettie’s eyes got wide and round, then they filled with understanding and sympathy. Kylo didn’t want sympathy, but Hettie could at least keep hers to herself and not slabber it all over him. “Ye tellin’ me tha’ tha’ Hux lad is back in town? Ach, love, I’m so sorry. I c’n go by Finn’s place if ye want. Ye need tha’ jacket back, but I fully understand why ye wouldnae wanna go there yerself.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll give ‘im a talkin’ t’ fer ye. Tha’s no’ a very nice thing t’ do t’ one’s mates - jus’ shovin’ people in their faces like tha’. Ye never kno’ wha’s ‘appened b’tween then an’ now.”

“Ten fucking years,” Kylo muttered. “And you know what? He still looks _exactly_ the same. Same clothes, same haircut, same stupid fucking look on his face; that fucking ‘I’m so much better than all of you’ look. I can’t fucking _believe_ I ever loved him - I’m the biggest goddamn idiot on the planet.”

“Wi’ t’ risk o’ soundin’ all cliché on ye, love - we cannae choose who we love. Tha’s no’ our decision. T’s jus’ a thing tha’ ‘appens.”

 Kylo paused his pacing, sighing deeply as he ran a hand over his face.

“Why the fuck did he have to come back here? I just… just, _why_? He won’t stay, I know he won’t. He’ll just give everyone a lot of false fucking hope, and then he’ll waltz right back out like he did last time, and leave all of us here to clean up the mess. _Again_.” He snarled. “And look at me! It’s been _ten years_ , Hettie! Ten years, and the second I saw him I went and got all messed up about it! Fucking hell, I nearly punched the idiot, you know. I just… He made me so fucking angry, just standing there, looking at me like- like he knew _shit_. Like he wasn’t even fucking _sorry_ , and I just- Why the fuck does it still hurt this much? Huh? God, I want to punch his backstabbing fucking face in.”

Hettie got up from the couch, putting herself in front of him, arms open to the sides in a gesture of invitation.

“Come ‘ere, love,” she said gently, “lemme give ye a ‘ug. Ye look like ye need one.”

Kylo let himself be pulled into a tight hug, putting his free arm around her shoulder in reciprocation. It probably looked absolutely fucking ridiculous, given that Hettie barely reached his shoulder and Kylo was only half her size width wise. But Hettie gave the best hugs, and she never pitied him. In fact, for the longest time, she was the only one (sans Poe) he’d allow to come within three feet of him. Back when he was still working his way out of the wheelchair he’d used for over a year, when he would fly into fits of rage if someone looked at him for too long, when he would rather piss himself than let anyone help him to the bathroom, Hettie had been there - enduring his foul moods, his venomous words, his refusal to be touched or to cooperate in any way - and helped him relearn how to see touch as a positive thing, a healing thing.

Originally, she’d only come into his life through the _A Dignified Life_ organization, assigned to help him with his daily tasks, like shopping, cleaning, doctor’s appointments and medication and anything else he might need - so that he could have an “independent and dignified life at home” despite his disabilities. Kylo was the youngest client the organization had in this entire area, and as time went by he’d found himself more or less adopted as Hettie’s grandchild, and now she came by every day regardless if she was on duty or not. If he was to be honest with himself, he didn’t want to even think about what he would do if she wasn’t in his life.

“‘T’s alright, love,” she soothed. “Ye’re allowed t’ feel all o’ this. Some things take time, an’ tha’s alright. Tha’ lad did wrong by ye, an’ ‘e ne’er tried t’ fix it. ‘E left ye without closure fer all this time, an’ tha makes it ‘ard t’ move on. ‘E meant a lot t’ ye, an’ tha’s no’ somethin’ tha’ll jus’ go away.”

“I fucking hate this entire fucking situation,” he growled. “I just… Fuck, I don’t have time to have a day like this right now. I need to be doing something! I don’t wanna give that scumbag another damn second of my time, but I can’t fucking stop _thinking_ about it!”

Hettie let him rant - her patience was downright angelic sometimes - until he ran out of steam and then let him go back to his pacing. While he did that, she went to rummage around his fridge and freezer, despite the fact that they’d just gone grocery shopping the other day, and when she came back, it was with a list consisting mainly of ice cream, sodas, and other treats that she informed him would be appearing in his kitchen in a little while - so that they’d have something to snack on while she helped him with his inventory. How the fuck _she_ knew he needed to go through it was a goddamn mystery - considering he hadn’t gotten around to tell her - but he thanked her nonetheless, especially since she refused to let him pay for the things she was getting. It wasn’t as if he’d be in better shape tomorrow if he tried to run up and down his stairs god knows how many times tonight, and he did have a session with ‘Taka coming up in a few days that would provide him with all the physical exertion he could possibly need. And then there was his daily workout routine - that he never actually did on a daily basis - so yeah, he was already covered as far as exercising went. Yeah, Hettie would definitely be a better candidate for any stair-related activities; she had more energy at sixty-something than he could remember having at sixteen - which was saying a lot, considering that he was among the top five long-distance runners in the state at that time.

When she’d left, Kylo finally gave up and resorted to grabbing himself a joint from his bedside drawer - making himself as comfortable as he could in his corner of the couch, ensuring that none of the smoke went Millicent’s way - and tried to focus on the TV while waiting for it to take effect. This was already proving to be one hell of a long day, and it was barely even afternoon yet. He was so tired, not just physically, but mentally as wellI, and as the minutes ticked by, he became less interested in getting the inventory sorted today. He needed to take it slow, to rest, so anything else would have to wait until tomorrow. His entire fucking _life_ could fucking wait until tomorrow.

After sending Hettie a text asking to postpone all of the inventory stuff until Monday, he curled up further on the couch, taking deep drags of the joint, and tried not to think about anything related to _Caleb Goddamn Hux_.

 -----

On the way over to the house on Cleftstone Road, Hux called Phasma to check in and apologize for forgetting his promise the night before. The red Dodge came outfitted with its share of extras - oversized swamper tires, a hitch ball that looked it could easily pull a full size fifth wheel behind it, a lined bed that kept whatever you were hauling from scratching the paint job - but bluetooth wasn’t one of them, so he held the phone up to his ear, driving with his knee. It was something he wouldn’t have tried in L.A., the police were so thick, but out here he couldn’t imagine he’d get pulled over in the mile and a half to the address Finn had given him. And even if he was, Hux figured there was a good chance he’d know the deputy responsible and be able to talk his way out of a ticket. It had worked well enough at keeping him out of any real trouble when he was a kid - that and his reputation as the preacher’s son. It was the only good thing his dad had done for him.

Phasma’s phone rang six times before kicking over to voicemail - he hadn’t expected she’d answer anyway. She had clinic hours one Saturday a month, and Hux left a short message letting her know she didn’t didn’t have to call him back, the house was still standing and he’d hit up his family lawyer’s office as soon as Monday morning rolled around. He didn’t mention Finn, or Ben, or any of the strange feelings roiling around in his belly since Finn had pulled the fish tacos out of his hands in the freezer aisle of Gott’s. Hux couldn’t have said why - Phasma had figured out what Ben had meant to him all on her own, and near every story he’d told her of the endless summer days of his adolescence featured Ben and Finn as the star players. Still, it felt strange to admit that the feelings that had dogged him then weren’t as far away as he had thought. That there remained something alluring about Bar Harbor and the the people there, the hold-outs who’d never left.

Ben’s house was a good ways down Cleftstone Road, the houses getting fewer and farther between out here, manicured lawns exchanged for patches of foliage that grew wild, what would soon reveal itself as Canadian thistle and poverty brush creeping up onto the sides of the road, the yellow lines on the pavement faded and cracked. There’d be wildflowers here before too long, Hux thought, as he putzed along, eyes peeled and windshield wipers working overtime. Ben would like that. Always had.

Just as Finn had said, there was an unpaved turn off right before the sign for Eagle Lake. The dirt there looked like it was packed tight when the weather was dry, but it had been anything but dry for going on two days now, and when the the tread of the Dodge’s back tires slid going around the corner, sending the bed and ball fishtailing, Hux hissed, taking Finn’s advice and shifting into four wheel drive. The turn off had been unmarked, but it seemed too long to be a driveway, no house in sight, only clouds and sky and overgrown brown grass, the whole thing a sea of washed out mud. Hux had begun questioning whether he’d misunderstood Finn’s directions by the time he caught sight of two buildings in the distance, both smallish and collecting moss on their wooden-shingled roofs, the only spots of color on a canvas of grey.

He tapped the brakes then, just the lightest touch of his foot to give him time to decide which one of them belonged to Ben - Finn hadn’t mentioned that - and that was when the skidding of the tires from earlier repeated itself. With gusto this time, the whole tail end of his pick-up swinging around the front and his front tires jackknifing, so that he wound up facing opposite the direction he’d come, looking back at Cleftstone, with both sets of tires lodged deep in sucking mud.

_“Goddammit!”_ Hux’ heart was lodged in his throat, his upper lip dotted with sweat as he put a shaky foot down on the gas, tires squealing as they spun uselessly, kicking up mud, just like he’d known they would. Stupid, stupid, stupid - he knew better than to spin his wheels like that when he was already stuck. He wasn’t some goddamned _tourist,_ but he’d nearly shit his pants, had all but seen his life flash before his eyes, just then. Ben’s driveway was “kind of a bitch” his ass! He was going to wring Finn’s neck the next time he saw him. It was downright treacherous, reminded him of the time Ben had buried his uncle’s Volkswagen in a perfect show of why the 1970s classic wasn’t known for offroading. Luke wouldn’t be showing up to bail him out this time, though. If Hux didn’t stop being such a damn city boy, he’d dig himself even further in, and then he’d really be screwed, lucky to unbury the Ram before Memorial Day.

And it wasn’t like he could just go up to the house - whichever one it was - and ask to borrow a shovel. Even if Ben _could_ have helped, he probably would rather have set the truck on fire than done anything to help Hux.

Hux gave it another minute before hitting the gas again, really laying into the mud this time like he meant business, spattering the back window and the inside of the truck bed, but the engine just whined in protest, tires spinning faster and faster but still refusing to grip. What he needed, Hux thought, giving up the fight and letting his head fall back against the seat, was momentum from behind - someone willing to give him a push, the way he and Luke had for Ben that day. The damn mud was too slick for anything else - even a four wheel drive with all-weather tires - and he allowed himself a sigh of self pity before opening the door to a faceful of rain, sliding down out of the cab with a _plop_ when his shoes landed and stuck in the mud. Perfect. A few seconds of consideration, and he reached back up onto the seat to drag the jacket down with him.

He was already good and stuck; might as well do what he’d come here to do. If Ben didn’t kill him on sight, maybe he’d let him wait inside while he called AAA.

When he lifted his foot, his shoe was left behind, the mud emitting a desperate sucking sound as it tightened its hold while his foot continued into in a patch of damp, squishy grass. And so Hux began his plodding march down the rest of Ben’s driveway with one muddy sock shoved back inside his untied Bally Herick’s. The ground sloped off to one side, he noted through his misery. There was a blue heron standing on the hillside, its beak tucked into its wing and ruffling its feathers, unbothered by the rain as it watched Hux pass with sharp eyes, while behind what Hux now recognized as a house and a smaller shed of some kind - definitely nowhere big enough for a person to live - the grassland gave way to forest, dark but not any less welcoming in the rain, the smell of sodden soil and rotting leaves and, always, fish hanging in the mist.

The jacket was tucked under his arm, an attempt to shield it from the worst of the rain as Hux approached the shed, mud soaking his jeans almost up to his knees. It was new-ish, though not well cared-for, and Hux wondered what use Ben could possibly have for a shed. Certainly he wasn’t doing much yard work, and sporting vehicles were out of the question. He wasn’t going to be waterskiing or snowmobiling anytime soon, but the large padlock that hung from the double front doors meant that whatever Ben kept in there would have to remain a mystery for today.

Beyond the shed, where the driveway dropped off without warning and Hux had to make his way through grass so tall it must have been allowed to grow unchecked for years, stood what Finn had told him was Ben’s house, larger than the shed, but not by much. One bedroom, maybe two at most, with a porch built off the front that looked like it had been added on later. It sat unevenly with the foundation of the house, the overhang crooked and rotted straight through in some places, letting rain in to pool on floorboards that didn’t look much sturdier, the only attempt at repair a haphazard patching job that left a gap where two of them didn’t quite meet up. At one time, it might have been one of those cottages rented out to tourists in the summer, quaint for a week at a time if not large enough to call home year-round - but if it had been, the house hadn’t seen its last tenants in a good five or ten years at least. The East Coast weather had been left to take its toll on the house, warp its shingles and boards, the moss growing on the roof accompanied by the delicate leaves of an Allegheny vine snaking up through a knot in the wood of a small pediment that housed a hexagon-shaped window, too clouded over to reveal anything inside.

It resembled Ben’s Uncle Luke’s place - the house where Ben had grown up - only in size. His Uncle Luke’s might not have been anything worth writing home about, the gate never closed and the latch never fixed so it would stay that way anyway, with an uneven stone pathway and a collection of stray cats that had roamed around the yard like they were drawn there, but Hux had liked it all the same - the strange collection of brightly colored fabrics with tasseled ends covering the windows in place of curtains, the smell of incense clinging to the pillows Luke left spread around in place of patio furniture, the giant amethyst geode he’d used to prop the front door open in the summer. There had been something welcoming about Luke in all his strangeness, and when Hux’ parents had questioned what was going on over at that Skywalker place, Hux had made up some bullshit lie about Ben’s family being a bunch of lapsed Episcopalians with an affinity for patchouli and wind chimes.

His dad had taken enough issue with Episcopalians that he’d bought it, but his mom had still raised an eyebrow every time she’d caught Ben palming the crystal he wore around his neck.

But that had been a different house, in a different time. Did anyone even still live here, Hux wondered, as he walked on tiptoe around the side of the run-down cottage. It was hardly taller than he was, and he struggled to imagine someone inhabiting something that looked so close to collapse. If he squinted through the mist, he thought he could see the glow of a lamp from inside the single ground-floor window, signaling the presence of someone inside, but that didn’t make it any easier to picture what the hell would have led Ben to move into a place like this. It was a buyer’s market in Bar Harbor. People didn’t move here, aside from the snowbirds who spent the summers down south; they _stayed_ here. Or ended up here - but Finn had said this was where he would find Ben, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d gotten the directions wrong, or Hux had misunderstood them. That had to be it, because there was no way he’d pissed Finn off enough that he’d sent him out here to pound on the door of some batty old recluse who might have been hiding bodies under all those old floorboards.

...right?

Hux crept onto the porch with a sense of foreboding, spongy, rotten boards threatening to give way under his feet; with his every step they sagged further, groaning in protest. A lightbulb with the filaments burned black hung from exposed wiring over his head - it must have burned out months ago, and good thing. With wiring like that, in weather like this, the light on the porch was a disaster waiting to happen. The house didn’t look like it could withstand another strong gust of wind; an electrical fire would have done it in for sure, and he used the toe of his shoe to push aside a half-empty can of paint, once a pale shade of pink but ruined now that it had been rained in, that had been left in front of the doorway.

His path cleared, Hux got up on the tips of his toes to press his nose against a single pane of glass in the center of the door, just as cloudy as the window in the pediment. His breath fogged the glass, wet and warm in his face, the sound of any movement from behind the door drowned out by the monotony of the rain. After a moment spent scanning inside for something to indicate that someone was home, or that the shack hadn’t already been abandoned well before his arrival, Hux rapped on the door with his first and second knuckles, peeking into the crack where the hinges met the wall.

“C’mon,” he swore to himself when there was no answer, letting his forehead rest against the glass, Ben’s jacket still bundled under his arm. “I could use a break here, you know.” Unsure who he was pleading with, he knocked again, louder this time.

Still nothing. No movement from inside the house, no sound. If anyone was here, they were doing a damn good job of pretending not to be. Hux had almost convinced himself he should give up trying to talk to ghosts and check out the back of the house instead - there had to be a shovel back there, a spare piece of plywood, something he could use to help get his truck un-stuck - when his eyes caught on the doorknob, just as he was about to head back out into the rain. But it wasn’t the knob itself that stopped him - that was nothing special, hanging loose in the door, its brass tarnished green where fingers had gripped it over time. None of that mattered, though, because around it, there was tied a piece of twine, and when he leaned in closer, he recognized the small rock crystal attached to the end.

Hux’ throat tightened, his breath coming faster, as he leaned into the crack of the door again, speaking quickly.

“B- _damn._ ” He licked his lips. “Kylo. Kylo, are you in there? I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but Finn sent me. You forgot your-” He’d barely gotten the words out when the door swung open, revealing the same angry face he’d never seen before yesterday.

Ben looked like hell - worse than the night before, like the fourth day in his three day bender. He was dressed in a pair of sweatpants, one of legs rolled up around his knee, with what looked like yesterday’s breakfast caked near the drawstring, and Hux opened his mouth to apologize for probably waking him up, though it had to be going on noon by now. He hadn’t managed more than an intake of breath before Ben reached out and snatched the jacket from his hands. Hux let him take it.

“Finn said to tell you he was sorry,” he explained. “He didn’t get a chance to wash-”

 And then the door was being slammed in his face, the loose doorknob rattling and the little rock crystal leaving a dent where it crashed into the wood.

 -----

The universe was obviously out to get him today, Kylo thought as he made his way to the door, because he was just not in the fucking mood for this shit. He’d finally, _finally_ , gotten some relief from the pain, and had settled down to try and meditate for a moment to clear his head - making good use of the effect of the weed. But the second he’d gotten his breathing right, some absolute fuckwit decided to come knock on his door. And who the fuck would even do that? Finn didn’t knock - he called ahead, and then let himself in. Same with ‘Taka. Hettie had her own key, and she wasn’t coming back today anyway.

Then, as he got close enough to put his hand on the doorknob, he saw a splash of copper red through the window, and then that voice… That fucking _voice._

Caleb.

Yeah, the universe was definitely out to get him. But at least now that tarot spread from last week started to make sense. For once in his life, he really kinda hoped it would stop doing that, preferably right now. He wasn’t so sure he wanted in on _that_ ride.

Taking a few seconds to collect himself, he tried to summon some sort of… basic politeness? Patience? Tolerance? Who knew. Maybe if he just quietly backed away and pretended not to be home, the fucker might go away? But then Caleb spoke again, and Kylo knew that if he was even half as stubborn now as he’d been back then, he’d stand there like an idiot for god knows how long - or he’d go look for a back door. There really was no avoiding it, was it?

Gritting his teeth, he opened the door, took in the sight of Caleb - who looked less like Caleb, and more like a drowned, mud coated, ginger rat - and his favorite jacket all bundled up in Caleb’s grip. He grabbed it, and shut the door - hoping the idiot got the message.

He didn’t.

“ _Oh, come on, man! B-Kylo, I’m begging you. Can I just- look, it’s raining cats and dogs out here, you know how it gets up here in spring. Remember that April we spent holed up in your uncle’s loft? There wasn’t a dry day for_ weeks, _and it just thundered and thundered and it was so damn loud up there, everything echoed. You jumped every time though, like you weren’t expecting it._ ” An exasperated, and, strangely enough, pleading voice came from the other side of the door, and Kylo knew he wouldn’t get out of this situation. “ _Just… I’m not asking for us to be friends here, but I went and got my truck all stopped up in the mud like a damned idiot, and I thought maybe I could just come in for a minute to dry off? Just a minute, then you can go back to hating me all you want._ ”

Kylo muttered a long string of curses, tossing the jacket over the little stool that stood right by the door. He knew that Caleb knew by now that he didn’t move fast enough to have gone out of earshot from the door, and again, Caleb Hux was one of the most stubborn guys he’d ever known. He’d stand there all day if he needed to, and Kylo did _not_ enjoy that prospect. Maybe if he let him in, he’d go away quicker? He did say he just needed to dry off. Probably call AAA. That shouldn’t take too long, so maybe it was worth a shot.

He opened the door, giving the soaked figure a proper once over. The idiot wasn’t even wearing a proper jacket, and the sneakers looked like he’d intentionally stomped in every single puddle of mud he could find. As if that wasn’t enough, he was actually _shivering._  It was fucking embarrassing to see him having turned all out unprepared tourist. Kylo snorted, turning to head back inside - completely ignoring the confused look on Caleb’s face.

“Take your shoes off,” was all he said as he headed for the closet where his towels were. “And shut the door. It’s fucking freezing.”

“You’re telling me,” Hux agreed, grateful for something to talk about. “I was hoping it would have started warming up by time I touched down. Looks like I was wrong about that.” He didn’t move from his spot by the door, his hair dripping and his socks soaked through, even after he’d toed his Bally Herick’s off and left them to dry against the wall. Inside, the house smelled like mildew and damp, unwashed laundry and clay and… something more herbal that he couldn’t place. His skin prickled. Once, moving about in Ben’s space had been as simple as accepting his Uncle Luke’s cursory reading of his aura and touches to his palm lines before refusing his weird tea and taking the ladder up to Ben’s room, Ben’s skin easier to inhabit with his hesitant touches and unpracticed kisses than his own; he wished he could reach into his memories and find any of that now.  “I should have remembered, but ten years is ten years, you know? I haven’t felt rain like this since that fishing trip Finn talked us into taking right before prom. Soaked the tent straight through, remember? The rain never gets cold like this out on the West Coast.”

Funny, he hadn’t remembered he remembered that.

Ben, who was busy pawing through a hall closet, didn’t seem to hear him; the Henley he wore had seen better days, and one of the fuzzy, woolen socks on his feet sported a hole where his big toe poked through. In the corner, a tin paint bucket with the instructions worn away, its handle still attached but rusted in place, collected water that dripped through a leak just a few inches from a mattress and boxspring that had been left without a frame. There was a sofa too, but not one that looked like it could fit more than one person, the cushions sagging in the middle from long years of a body resting in one position - and next to that, another bucket, the kind that maybe had once been used for holding soapy water when washing a car or mopping a kitchen floor. It was half full, the steady drip from the ceiling creating ripples that expanded outward then disappeared, then expanded outward again. Those were the biggest leaks, but a half-dozen tin cans, emptied of the creamed corn or peas or hickory smoked baked beans their labels pictured, contained the water from smaller ones.

When Ben returned from the hall closet, painstakingly slow and with hairs escaping the bun at the back of his head to stick to the sweat beading his upper lip, he tossed a look to that broken-in sofa, and Hux complied with the silent request, planting himself at the edge, his knees pressed together and his hands clasped in his lap. He didn’t have his cane this time, Hux noted, the limp more pronounced without it, like he was using the momentum from one side of his body to propel the other side forward, the lower leg hanging twisted and almost useless where the sweatpants had been cuffed to keep him from tripping on them. It made his stomach churn to look at it, how Ben fought not to show how badly it hurt on his face, the tenseness in the tattoo creeping up the side of neck, almost onto his cheek, giving him away.

“You don’t have to-” He wasn’t ready when Ben tossed the balled up towel at him. It bounced square off his face as he scrambled to catch it.

“You’re dripping on my fucking couch.” Ben shrugged, like it could really ever be that simple between them. Like Hux hadn’t ever toweled both of them off after a dip in the stream out behind his uncle’s place when the afternoon got too hot, and Hux just ruffled his hair with it, trying not to pay any particular attention to the way it smelled. He didn’t expect it to feel like it had been washed with fabric softener, but it did.

“Sorry,” Hux said, using the corner of the towel to clean out his ears. “I didn’t mean to show up here and get your house all… wetter than it was.” His eyes tracked a drop of water about to fall from a beam in the ceiling into what had once been a can of tomato soup. A few more days of rain and Ben wouldn’t have to worry about the couch; he’d need a rowboat. “But I think we both know that you have about a hundred better reasons to not want me on your couch than that.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, Ben’s gaze on him piercing, his fist massaging his thigh, digging into it savagely.

“Seriously, uh, thanks for letting me in, man. And the uh-” He stopped digging in his ear to lift his hand up. “The towel.”

“Didn’t wanna be responsible if you catch pneumonia and die from standing on my porch all day like some idiot,” Kylo shrugged, moving one of his easels out of the way of _another damn leak_ that threatened to ruin the mandala he was working on. It was a commission piece, and he needed the money if he was ever gonna be able to fix all the fucking leaks in his fucking roof. Digging up a plastic sheet, he carefully covered the canvas, making sure no water would be making its way underneath. He’d apparently forgotten to clean the palette up yesterday. Weird. He usually never did. But yesterday had obviously not been his best, considering he’d let himself get roped into going to that party despite being mid-flare up with his joints. Grabbing it and contemplating heading for the kitchen so he could clean it off, he glanced over at Caleb.

The fucker was just sitting there, eyes wide as fucking dinner plates as he was looking around the room. Wide green eyes trailing from the paintings covering his walls, to the piles of books all over his floor, to the crystals everywhere, and back to the various vessels collecting the rainwater. If he was pitying him, Kylo would fucking murder him. He didn’t need any goddamn pity - he got enough of that as it was. Fucking idiot people all summer season not knowing when to mind their own goddamned business. So there were a few leaks in the roof - big deal. Luke’s house had had those, too. And sure, his house had seen better days, but it was still fucking standing, and Kylo happened to fucking like it. Not that he could’ve moved out even if he wanted to. But it had a roof and four walls, plenty of room for him to do his work, and it kept him mostly warm and dry - which was all he needed it to do. But given what Caleb came from, this was probably a fucking nightmare. That old victorian was a league of its own, and knowing him, Caleb probably got himself a fucking penthouse or some shit like that when he went off to LA.

“Oh c’mon, I’d never have lasted that long,” he scoffed. “You know I don’t have that kind of stamina. It was always you who went the distance - I was just a lowly sprinter.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hux regretted them; the last thing Ben needed was another reason to remember just how bad Hux was at seeing things through. The past ten years of his absence had done a good enough job at proving that, and without another word, Hux hung the towel around his neck, so it draped over his shoulders. When he was brave enough to take his eyes off his feet, Ben’s dark head wasn’t looking at him, bent down inspecting the edges of the plastic sheet he’d used to cover his easel, but Hux didn’t miss the way his shoulders drew together, flinching at the remark.

Hux waited for Ben’s cutting response - something he totally deserved - but it never came, Ben continuing to poke at the easel as if Hux hadn’t said anything at all. Somehow, he suspected, that was worse; Ben was giving him the cold shoulder, and after a moment of silence so full it threatened to drown him, Hux cleared his throat.

“This is, uh…” He was going to call it a nice place, but he couldn’t get his tongue around the words. Ben already thought he was full of shit; if he said that, he’d know it for sure. “So this is where you’ve been crashing, huh?” Still no answer. Instead, Ben started for the kitchen, palette in hand, ignoring the fact that Hux could have caught up to him in a few strides if he wanted to. But just because he could didn’t mean that he _should._ Hux didn’t think that would go over well, so when he got to his feet, he ventured no further than the edge of the couch.

“Kylo,” he said, not stopping when Ben continued his slow march to the sink. The house was so small Hux could see from one end of the kitchen to the other from his place in the living room, a half-empty bottle of off-brand dishsoap sitting to the left of the faucet. There was a card table in there too, popped up in the center of the room, with only one chair and an open carton of juice left out on top of it. Other than a stove and refrigerator that looked like they’d been installed in the ‘80s, it was the only furniture Hux could see. “I’m, uh- I’m gonna be in town for a while. I was just thinking maybe… ah, maybe I might be able to-” Ben turned the knob on the faucet until the water was on full-blast, so loud Hux almost had to shout to be heard over it, grabbing a sponge and beginning to scrub at the palette with a ferocity Hux was pretty sure wasn’t necessary.

“Look, I’m gonna be stuck here a for a couple of days at least, and I’m gonna need something to occupy my mind or I’m gonna go nuts with this rain.” His voice softening when the water finally shut off and Ben left the palette to clatter into the drying rack, Hux’ hand migrated to the back of his neck again. It was a tell he knew Ben would be able to read, and he forced it back down to his side as he asked himself when ‘by the time the week was out’ had become ‘a while’ and just when in the past 24 hours he’d acquired a wish to die here in Bar Harbor. “Your place looks like it could use some work - just simple stuff, a nail here, a… well, a whole new roof there. No biggie.” He shrugged, watching the flex of Ben’s hands as he scrubbed his hands clean of paint, dried white, in the cracks of his knuckles, his long fingers still as strong as ever. “What do you say I help you with it? Whip this place into shape, try to get it really looking good for you? Shouldn’t take too long if we put our minds to it.”

“Wow,” Kylo said with a bitter laugh, turning to face him. His blood felt stone cold, and he was glad there was almost an entire room between them - had Caleb been closer, he’d be bleeding by now.  “You are fucking incredible. Ten fucking years, and now you turn up, notice that I’ve become the local angry cripple, and out of the goodness of your Christian fucking heart you decide you want to help me?” He fixed Caleb with a glare that had him visibly flinching, shrinking until he more or less melted back into the couch. “The saintly Dr. Hux, coming back to help the poor little cripple Kylo? Is that what you see when you look at me, huh? Some fucking charity case? Something to be pitied? You really think I’d be grateful for you offering your so-called help, just so you’ll have something to do while you’re waiting for your chance to ditch again? _Fuck you_ , Caleb. Fuck you, and fuck your pity. I don’t want it, and I don’t need it.”

Kylo was pretty damn proud of the way he hadn’t raised his voice or resorted to throwing something at Caleb’s thick fucking head yet, but god, he wanted him gone, because the anger was simmering so close to the surface and he was tired and in pain, and just looking at Caleb made him think about things he didn’t want to remember. He couldn’t fucking look at the man without remembering walking home after he’d been… what? Dumped? Betrayed? Left behind? Thrown away like he was garbage, like his heart and soul and everything he had kept giving and giving and giving just wasn’t worth anything? Like _he_ wasn’t worth anything anymore. He couldn’t look at that face and not remember how he hadn’t even been able to see the road in front of him, tears blinding him, steps stumbling, his entire chest just one big open wound as he had walked home that day - praying no one saw him in that sad fucking state. Even Luke had realized it was bad, and actually acted like a proper parent for once; bringing him his favorite snacks, tea, even dinner - reminding Kylo it was okay to cry, and arranging for them to go somewhere fun for a few days to take his mind off what happened. Kylo had been so paralyzed by it he’d been unable to get out of bed for several days - his entire world crashed, burned, a pile of useless debris he had no idea how to rebuild himself and his life with. Nothing had ever been the same again.

And now Caleb thought offering to fix his house - to keep himself occupied - was perfectly okay? Like none of that had happened? Like Kylo would gratefully accept the crumbles from his table like a starved dog?

No fucking way in hell. Not from him.

“I don’t _care_ if you’re grateful.” The water was off, but Hux could hear his voice getting louder, the words frayed at the edges. “Dammit, Ben - ah, fuck, _Kylo._ I meant Kylo. Don’t kill me, please.” He flinched with his whole body, his eyes squeezing shut. Ben was standing in what passed as the door to the kitchen - it looked there had been a support wall there once, but it had been knocked down in an attempt to give the place an open concept design. Maybe someone had bought the place and tried to flip it back in the day, but if they had, it hadn’t worked out well for them. He had propped himself up against a cabinet, taking the weight off of his left leg, and he looked _pissed._

When they were younger, it had been almost impossible to get Ben mad. The only thing that had really worked was fucking with Finn, or Hux, or - later on - Mitaka, who’d gotten it worse than any of them. That was it. Hux remembered one time when an asshole from Southwest had pulled some shit, slammed into Ben’s backpack, perpetually left half unzipped, on purpose, spilling his pencils and books and his fucking _scientific calculator_ all over the floor; the whole hallway had backed up, thinking he was going to go nuts. Anyone else would have, but instead, he’d just shrugged and bent down to pick the calculator up, sliding back the cover to make sure it still turned on. He hadn’t said a word.

But that Ben was long gone.

“Don’t you get it?” Hux began to pace - the short distance from the end of the couch to the front door and then back again, wooden floorboards squeaking under wet socks, Ben watching him the whole time. “That’s not the point. Kylo, you need _help._ I don’t care if it’s from me or from Finn or from some handyman in the goddamn yellow pages. You’ve can’t live like this - I can’t let you!”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“You don’t get to say one fucking word about how I can or cannot live!” Ben spat, his voice like a whip. It stopped Hux’ pacing, left him frozen over by the front door, he and the no-longer-a-boy who had taught him how to kiss engaged in a staredown across the dim light of the living room, the television shoved against the wall left playing grainy midday home makeover reruns on mute. Hux’ hands shook. “You lost the right to your fucking opinions ten years ago.”

“You’ve got to be-” Hux swore to himself. There was a stone of guilt on his chest, the weight of it gluing his feet to the floor, tendrils coming up to wrap around his ankles. He should never have come here - should never have come to Bar Harbor. Should never have left Bar Harbor. Should never, should never, should _never_. He wondered how many ways there were to get the same problem wrong, then wondered how many times Ben had thought of him and wondered the same. “It’s not an _opinion,_ Kylo!” He threw his hands up in the air, beaten. “It’s a fact. This house is one visit from the Department of Public Health away from being condemned!”

Ben still look as pissed as Hux had ever seen him, but he hadn’t been interrupted yet, so he plowed on anyway. Hey, Hux figured, if he couldn’t talk sense into him, he could least outrun him.

“You don’t have to take my word for it - look at this damned door!” The brass doorknob still hung off kilter; Hux wasn’t sure it even still locked. That worried him for Ben’s safety, even if Ben didn’t care one way or the other, and he took hold of it, giving it a emphatic tug. “It’s about to fall off its hin-” Suddenly, the resistance where he tugged against the door was gone, making him stumble back, which didn’t make sense, he thought, because if he’d succeeded in pulling it open, he should have felt the chill from outside and the-

When he looked down, the doorknob, backplate and all, was in his hand.

“Caleb...” Kylo’s voice was eerily calm, and that just made it worse. “If you are done breaking my house, you are more than welcome to _get the fuck out of here_ before I wring your goddamn neck!” He covered the distance between them, grabbing the broken doorknob right out of his hand, and used it to point to the patio doors across the room. “Might I suggest you use that door? If you think you can manage to get your ass through it without breaking it too!”

Kylo watched as Caleb did as he was told - apparently still enough brain left in him to know when he should admit defeat - hurrying to get in his shoes, stepping over piles of books, and trying to avoid the buckets and cans as well as the random piles of art supplies around his easels. The patio door was tricky to open, and Kylo didn’t even bother to deny the satisfaction he felt at seeing him scramble to get out of the house. Once he managed, he closed the door behind him with more care than Kylo ever had, and then made his way down from the back porch with a posture that showed that he was fully expecting it to collapse under him at any second.

Once he was out of sight, Kylo sighed, turning back to the front door to work the doorknob back into its place, locking the door while he was at it. Maybe he should see about that when he’d managed to fix the roof up? He never really thought about it, so used to minding how he grabbed it that it wasn’t a problem for him. Finn, ‘Taka, and Hettie had also learned what to do after similar incidents. He scratched his neck, pursing his lips. Nah, there were other things that were more important. Like fixing up the driveway, so he could actually make it across it without risking life and limb when it was cold or rainy. He needed to fix his stove as well, one of the stove plates had stopped working, and another one only worked occasionally - which made Hettie frustrated every time she helped him cook. Sure, fixing the whole place up was a dream he had sometimes, in his weaker (more sentimental) moments, but it just wasn’t realistic. He’d never have the money for it. That was a fact.

Making his way over to the patio door, he locked it, then sat down in the couch - reaching for a bottle of Jack he was pretty sure wasn’t empty yet.

He refused to even think about the sudden ache of loneliness the massive silence caused in him. Was it always this quiet around here? He’d never really noticed it before.

\-----

It wasn’t until he reached his truck and slid across onto the vinyl seat that Hux allowed himself to think. By then, the rain was slowing, finally, the first hint of a break at the very edge of the clouds where he thought the sun might poke through if it set its mind to it, and an experimental tap on the accelerator managed to get the truck started moving. A few careful taps after that, and he was working himself out of the ruts he’d dug earlier, sending the blue heron still perched on the hill flying off with an offended squack. Really, it wasn’t so hard - it just took a little patience, and a little more remembering.

Weird, he thought. That morning, he’d thought he was screwed for sure. Stuck, maybe for good, the Dodge a write off until the summer dried out. It was funny how quickly things could turn around, and as he pulled back onto the main road, he rummaged around beside him on the seat until he felt the plastic of his phone case beneath his hand. Too much rain had always made him do crazy things.

This time, when he dialed Phasma’s number, she answered on the second ring.

“Phas?” He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I changed my mind. I think I want to keep the house.”

\-----

The sound of a knock on the door - loud enough to be heard even over Hatebreed’s _Supremacy_ album on damn near top volume - broke Kylo out of his gloomy thoughts, and he got to his feet with a string of muttered profanities, because who the fuck was it _this_ time? What the hell was the deal with today? First his joints being a bunch of motherfuckers, then Hettie nearly scaring the shit out of him, and then that… that goddamn son of a fucking bitch Caleb just had to turn up too. Just had to fucking come here, and fucking… fucking be _Caleb_. It wouldn’t be ‘Taka. Kylo’d sent him a text earlier, and he still hadn’t replied - meaning he was probably still in an intimate meeting with his toilet and bathroom floor. If it was Finn, God help him, Kylo would send him flying right back to his own street.

Using the battered old remote to turn down the volume as he walked to the door, Kylo prayed to any higher power out there for it not to be Caleb again. He couldn’t handle that. He’d murder him, and the last thing he needed right now was a 25-to-life on top of everything else. But when he’d finally wrestled the locks and opened the door, he just stopped for a moment to take in the sight before him - a deep sigh escaping him; relief and annoyance all mixed together, though admittedly more of the former than the latter.

“Hey, babe,” Poe grinned. He had his usual, overly large and flashy suitcase with him, a lesser mountain of grocery bags, and what looked like bags from some of their favorite shops back in Chicago. Holding up one specific bag, as if it was an offering, he shot off that smile; that goddamn beaming, sexy smile that they both knew always fucking worked. “Brought a couple of bottles of that red one you like, and I, uhm, I found some new beers I think you’ll like as well.”

Kylo just looked at him. Poe had his beaming smile, but Kylo had his own weapons, and nothing got Poe Dameron flustered as quickly as Kylo’s silent once overs. It made him lose his suave aura quicker than he could say his name, and they both knew that Kylo knew. When Poe started shifting from one foot to another, his still extended arm beginning to tremble a bit, Kylo scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“Who did it this time? He dump you, or you dump him?”

“Aw, come on, baby,” Poe protested, blushing. Kylo just kept looking him calmly in the eyes, and eventually Poe bowed his head in defeat. “It was, uhm, it was a joint decision. We, uhm, well… we had different, eh, different goals in life.”

“Meaning he wanted to be exclusive, and you didn’t.” Kylo snorted. “Nothing new there - not that it matters to me.” Shaking his head, he stepped aside to allow Poe inside. “Alright. Come on, then. Don’t just stand there, you look like an idiot.”

Poe hurried to grab his stuff - Kylo making a point of not admitting that he was impressed at how he got everything inside in one go - and the second Poe had put all the stuff down, he he swept Kylo right into a tight embrace while still taking care not to jostle him too much.

“I missed you,” he smiled, letting his hands wander all over Kylos’ body, sneaking under his shirt, playfully giving his ass a little squeeze. “How about a welcome back kiss?”

Rolling his eyes but being unable to stop himself from smiling at Poe’s cheesiness, Kylo closed the space between them, Poe’s lips slotting against his with an effortlessness that came out of years of practice. Poe Dameron was a damn good kisser; nearly as good at that as he was in bed, so when Kylo found himself gently nudged in that direction - with Poe promising in between kisses and nips to take care of groceries and dinner and everything while Kylo rested afterwards - he didn’t object. Maybe that was just what he needed right now; someone’s blatant desire and eagerness to act upon it. Though Kylo didn’t like to think about it, it had been way too long now - but luckily Poe knew how he worked, and he knew he’d do his best to make it good - and he allowed himself to shamelessly enjoy it.

Screw everything else right now. Screw his fucking joints, screw obligations, screw Finn and ‘Taka, and _screw Caleb Fucking Hux_. With Poe touching him like this, like Kylo was actually beautiful, continuing to whisper lovely things in his ear in between kisses, pulling his hair out of the bun so he could grab it tightly while still being gentle and mindful of Kylo’s damaged body, just the way Kylo needed… Yeah, with Poe in bed with him like this, everything else could wait. Kylo would take his happiness wherever he could find it. And right now, happiness was being ravished by Poe in a way that let Kylo pretend he was still a normal person.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We apologize for the lengthier wait between chapters. At this time, it appears this length of time between posted chapters will be standard since the two of us have a busy summer and even busier fall ahead. You can at least look forward to nice, long chapters, as that promises to continue.
> 
> If you're wondering what Poe is doing here, stay tuned for the next chapter, when it gets posted. He has a part to play - but it might not be what you would expect. There is a plan in motion here.
> 
> As always, we're so grateful to all those who choose to read along with us. We hope this chapter made you feel as many things as it did us, and we'd love for you to share those with us either in the comment section or over on tumblr: Loke at ficlet-machine and Cat at thegoodlannister
> 
> Happy reading!


	4. Foundation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No specific trigger warnings apply for this chapter, outside of those commonly found in this fic (ie. themes of internalized ableism and a hell of a lot of foul language, as well as mentions of alcohol use.)

Saturday felt like a really weird dream, or possibly another world, to Kylo now - bathed as he was in the bright light of the morning, the mattress soft and safe against his back, while Poe moved inside him. The weight of him on top of Kylo, the gentle but secure grip he kept on Kylo’s hips, the slow and deep rhythm and the way their skin stuck together, Poe’s lips against his - all of it helped him stay right there, in the moment, in the feeling. It wasn’t long until noon; they had slept in today, making sure Kylo got his meds taken, and then Poe had made them breakfast. The following cuddling session had - as it usually did - led to Poe asking if he felt up for it, and then swiftly getting him into a position that worked for them both. They had fucked twice the first night, three times the day before - ‘made love,’ according to Poe, who always was more of a sap than he let on - and Kylo knew that they probably should’ve taken it easier than they had, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. He hadn’t had sex in god knew how many months, and Poe was always so damn good at giving him just what he needed; he had a knack for it that was damn near creepy. If he had to spend tomorrow in bed, borderline unconscious from all his pain meds, while Poe took up residency on the couch with his laptop, then it would be worth it. He had too much pent up, and, it seemed, so did Poe. He was unusually eager, so Kylo had figured he probably hadn’t gotten what he needed in a while either.

Poe gave a roll of his hips that hit _just right_ , and Kylo didn’t bother to hold back on the groan that escaped him as he let his head roll back, exposing his neck to Poe’s eager mouth. He threw an arm over his face, the other one resting on Poe’s sweat soaked lower back. He was getting closer, and he was getting there pretty damn fast, but it was okay because so was Poe. There was that telltale strain in the movement of his hips, and his breath came in shallow pants against Kylo’s neck.

“You okay, babe?” Poe mumbled between licks and nips. “You close?”

Kylo nodded, swallowing repeatedly as he tried to make his voice work. He’d exhausted it quite badly last night, and he was paying for it now.

“Yeah,” he wheezed out. “Keep- keep going!”

“You’re so good to me, baby,” Poe whispered - the praise, along with the slow, sweet drag against his prostate worked wonders as always. “Always so good. So gorgeous. Come on, baby. Come for me.”

With how close he’d already been, that last encouragement had his entire body seizing and breath catching as he came, Poe only a thrust or two behind. He kept moving until both of them were spent, oversensitive messes, then carefully pulled out so he could lie down next to Kylo and pull him close; gently arranging them until Kylo was spooned against his chest. As always, Kylo grumbled and pretended to be annoyed with his post-fuck cuddling needs. He wasn’t fooling anyone, and they both knew it - after all, he was the one to initiate the cuddling that led to this.

“I’m fucking sticky!” he muttered, voice hoarse. “Stop fucking cuddling me, and get me something to clean up with!”

“In a moment, baby,” Poe chuckled as he nuzzled his neck. “Let me- let me catch my breath.” He ran a hand from Kylo’s chest down over his hip and thigh, openly admiring him in a way Kylo wouldn’t allow from anyone else. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Kylo nodded, letting Poe guide his head up so they could kiss. “I, uhm, I’m gonna need a fucking shower in a little, though. Just need to- to rest a bit, ‘cause I don’t think I can stand right now. You know how my hips get.”

“I know.” Poe kissed him again, running his hand through Kylo’s tousled hair, twirling it around his fingers. “How ‘bout this? You rest for a bit while I pop in a quick shower so I don’t spend all your hot water, and then I make some lunch?” He raised himself up so he could reach over and pick up the package of condoms on the nightstand. “Huh. Looks like I’m gonna have to go restock some, too. Hey, how ‘bout I pick stuff up for dinner? Seafood or something? While I’m out, I mean. Maybe some snacks or something too.”

Kylo maneuvered himself onto his back again, carefully stretching his legs.

“Sure,” he nodded. “Just help me into a shower before you do, okay? This ain’t college anymore - I don’t appreciate being covered in jizz half as much as I used to.”

“Well, at least you look damn sex- _oumph_!” Kylo clamped his hand over Poe’s mouth, fixing him with a glare.

“Finish that sentence, and you’re never getting in my fucking pants again. I’m not fucking into that stuff, and you know it.”

Poe pouted, but kept his mouth shut.

Once he had recovered some, Poe eventually got out of bed, and helped Kylo arrange himself in a way that would be comfortable while he rested - taking as much weight as possible off of the areas that had been under the most strain - before gently wiping his body clean of the mess they’d made, ignoring Kylo’s grumbling that he could clean himself up just fine if he could just have the fucking towel. Despite that, he was asleep before Poe had made it to the bathroom. That wasn’t really anything new; back in college, Kylo’s stamina had been a source of pride for him and one of fascination and awe for everyone he slept with, but after the accident he got worn out so much quicker, and needed more rest and recovery between all activities than before. This particular routine of theirs had been arduously crafted through six years of trial and error, but it worked - as much as anything between the two of them ever worked. Better, most of the time.

The rest of the morning followed their normal routine like a well-oiled machine. Poe made a quick lunch, and once they were done, he got Kylo in the shower where they made good use of the stool Kylo usually sat on when he was too fatigued to stand while he washed himself. Kylo cursed him to hell all the way back to the bed, which Poe had put new sheets in while he was drying his hair, but they both knew it just for show. Kylo never had a problem saying no when he didn’t feel up for it, and Poe never pushed - Kylo just needed to grumble, and that was all there was to it. He hadn’t been all that pleased, however, when he saw the amount of hickeys and bitemarks Poe had somehow managed to give him over the past few days. His neck and chest was more red and purple than anything else - even his neck tattoo was almost hidden against the dark blotches. It sure as fuck didn’t help that Poe was anything but sorry. Together, they got Kylo into new boxers and a clean pair of soft sweatpants, and he was halfway into sleep before his head even hit the pillow. But he knew he could rest without having to worry - the deal was that if Poe exhausted him, then Poe took care of the housework and other stuff that Kylo couldn’t while he rested.

\-----

Old Ron Chapman’s law office wasn’t particularly impressive - just your usual small town practice, with a big picture window that faced the sidewalk, the words **_Ronald Chapman, Private Attorney,_** stenciled across it. When Hux was young, he’d been the only lawyer in town - the kind that specialized in everything from wrongful death suits to divorce - and Hux had spent his fair share of hours with his ass parked in the yellow plastic chair over by the door, waiting for his dad to finish up business, stuff Ron had insisted his ears had been too young to hear. He hadn’t even had a secretary then, just a big copper bell on the door that jingled when it opened and an office door left ajar so he could hear if someone yelled for him. That and a bowl of dessert mints Hux had stuffed into his pockets as soon as his dad had disappeared into the office.

It was too bad the guy was dead, Hux thought; he would have liked to see his bushy white sideburns again, sticking up from underneath the arms of his rectangular framed glasses, and the beard that had grown in over the last couple of years before Hux had left.

The stenciled name still remained on the window, though the man it had belonged to was six feet underground in the cemetery on the end of Ledgelawn, as he’d learned while sharing a cup of coffee in the cafe on Cottage Street with a fisherman in rubber boots who smelled like a little like halibut and reminded Hux of one he used to see down on the docks, when he and Ben had hung around on their bikes and watched the day’s haul being drug in. He’d also learned he was right. Both of Ron’s sons - twins, with identical sandy brown hair going grey at the temples and thinning in exactly the pattern their dad’s had - had turned out to be attorneys, and they’d taken over the firm and all the cases that came with it, the Hux family’s included. The two of them had recognized Hux through the window before he’d walked in the door, though they’d graduated well before he started school, so there was no problem getting the home and property signed over into his ownership. A signature here, a set of initials there, and everything that had once belonged to his parents belonged to him, from the rock his mom had hidden the spare key under, to the heating vents that needed replacing before fall set in again.

That had been the easy part - the hard part was keeping up with the twins’ steady stream of words as he did. There wasn’t a subject he hadn’t asked about that they weren’t willing to catch him up on. Gossip about what was new in town, which didn’t really count as new anymore if it had happened five years ago, the story of how their dad had died - old age, not surprising given poor Ron looked to have been 100 if he was a day in the last picture they showed him - all the skinny on the heated dispute at the last town council meeting over whether they’d allow a Krispy Kreme to move in since the local donut shop had been laid to rest with the couple that owned it.

People didn’t talk like this out in L.A., Hux had realized, like there was nowhere else in the world to be and they had all afternoon to shoot the breeze with someone they really only knew second-hand anyway. Like their private lives were public property and they expected yours to be the same. It surprised him when, half-way through the conversation - leaning on the desk with one hand like he’d seen countless men do, discussing the latest divorce like it was the weather while he had tucked his feet under his yellow chair and run his fingers over the cellophane wrapped mints in his jacket pocket - he found he didn’t mind.

There was a hint of spring in the air when he left Ron’s old office, property deed under his arm and sun prickling the back of his neck where he’d folded down the collar of his flannel, the soles of his favorite pair of navy boat shoes leaving footprints on sidewalks still drying out from the rain. From the docks, he could hear the familiar sounds of fishermen haggling, and there was a new bed and breakfast getting ready for opening weekend on Wayman Lane, its owner hanging from a ladder straightening a newly painted wooden sign. He stuck his hammer between his teeth to wave down at Hux as he passed.

Hux waved back, popping two of the dessert mints in his mouth at once. He’d been happy to see the brothers hadn’t gotten rid of those either.

He had stolen enough mints that he sucked on them all the way back to his - _his -_ house on Hancock Street. It was less foreboding in the daylight than it had been at night, he thought, in that it looked less like it might harbor ghosts. Unfortunately, it looked _more_ like it had spent years empty and accumulating repairs that Hux was painfully unequipped to deal with. _His_ house, and this time as he thought the words, standing on familiar pavement in front of an old yellow victorian six times the size of the apartment he shared with Phasma in L.A., it became apparent that he’d lost his goddamned mind. What had he gotten himself into? He was a doctor, not a fucking repairman. This house was a project - a two story, 100 year old plus project - and Hux didn’t do projects. Especially not projects on the island where he’d grown up, where the only person he knew handy enough to begin doing the kind of work this place needed was… well, _Finn._

It wasn’t too late, he told himself, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk. He could still flip the place, sell it for cheap to another retiree couple looking to open Bar Harbor’s _next_ bed and breakfast. But as his eyes traveled up the set of stairs to the wraparound porch, he could see Ben, fourteen years old and always running on high, jogging up them two at a time. Ben, healthy and whole, leaping off his bike while it was still moving, letting it fall to scrape its blue paint against those steps without bothering with the kickstand. That would never happen here again - but if the steps had anything to say about it, they kept those thoughts to themselves, still and silent. No, Hux was the only one left around who gave a shit about what those steps had seen, and here he was, his mind already doing the calculations of how much it would cost to tear them down and install a ramp instead. Or maybe he could leave them alone and put the ramp around the side? And how expensive could it be, really, he wondered, to install a couple of handlebars in the downstairs bathroom? Maybe make the tub a little bigger, easier to get into, with more room between it and the sink. Fix up the vegetable and herb garden out back just because...

By the time he started listing the renovations on the second floor, his calculations were well into the thousands - but hey, he thought, there’d been a little inheritance money he hadn’t known about, and Finn was already bugging him for another reason to hang out again. Might as well throw the guy a bone. The track season was just about over.

Hux shrugged, fishing the plastic _Chapman & Sons _ keyring out of his jacket pocket and pushing open the gate. He straightened his shoulders. If this whole thing went south, he could always find out where Ben’s Uncle Luke had run off to and ask him to fix whatever the hell he’d done wrong in his past life. And _then_ sell the house.

\-----

“Ow!” Kylo hissed, both hands coming up to protect his hair from whatever the fuck it was Poe was doing with the brush. “The hair is fucking attached to my head, you know! You can’t just pull on it - it hurts!”

“Sorry!” Poe carefully untangled the brush from where he’d gotten it stuck. “I’m tryin’ to be careful, but your hair is tangled as fuck back here. How the hell you manage not to give yourself dreads with this is fucking beyond me.”

Kylo scoffed, picking at a small scab on his knuckle that he didn’t know where the fuck had come from.

“Because I brush it everyday,” he deadpanned. “And because I usually don’t get fucked who knows how many times a day three days in a row, and definitely not with damp fucking hair. If I’m on my back, it’s gonna get all tangled - you of all people should know that by now.” He took a deep breath, putting a hand on Poe’s knee, squeezing gently. “Thanks, though. It- uhm, it feels nice when you do it.”

Poe leaned in to give him a quick kiss before continuing to battle all the knots and tangles.

“You know I love your hair,” he said. “I don’t understand how the fuck you make it through summer, though. Seriously, dude, how the fuck can it be this thick? No wonder you always managed the best mohawks outta the lot of us - it fucking supports itself!”

“Dude, I used about a full can of hairspray for every one of those things,” Kylo snorted. “Or that gelatine mix that Danny taught me.”

“Danny…? Oh, that British dude you roomed with in Freshman year?”

“Yup.”

“The hell happened to him?”

“He’s a cop now. In, uhm, Leeds, I think.”

“What? No way! What- How? _Danny_? Five foot nothing, built like a twig, Danny? Danny who was gonna stage a revolution? Adorable anarchist Danny?”

“Yup.”

“The actual fuck?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, too.”

Poe shook his head in disbelief as he put the brush away, running his hands through Kylo’s hair, and Kylo damn near purred - he always loved it when people played with his hair, but there weren’t a lot of people he’d allow anywhere near it.

“Okay, babe,” Poe smiled. “Ponytail, braid, or bun?”

“Bun. Or it’ll just get in my face when I sleep.”

“Point,” Poe chuckled, reaching for the hair tie. “Whaddya say when I come back, we can try out that new beer I got, and see if you can still beat me in Tekken.”

“Don’t you have a novel to write, Mr. Bigshot Author?” Kylo teased. “You know, that one you’ve been writing for six years now?”

“Nah, I can take a day off from that,” Poe smirked, something devious playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’ve got plans today.”

Kylo scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah?” he snorted. “You’re pretty damn confident. What if I say no?”

Poe pouted for a second, then smiled again.

“Then I guess I’ll just make myself useful in _whichever_ way you want me,” he smirked, voice wicked, and the gleam in his eyes damn near obscene.

Kylo just rolled his eyes and carefully laid back down, doing his best ignore Poe’s smugness.

It was a banter that never really went anywhere, and they both knew it. It wasn’t really supposed to, either. Poe had the dirtiest mind of any human being Kylo had ever met, and he displayed a really fucking extraordinary lack of filters whenever he was near Kylo. It had been even worse… _before_.

They never talked about it, but it was still there. Before the accident, Poe had spent most of his time practically glued to Kylo, not caring where they were or who saw them or heard what he said about what he wanted to do with Kylo. They’d fucked right up against the crush barriers at that Combichrist concert Poe took him to, for fuck’s sake. Five thousand people in the audience, both of them drunk and happy, high on adrenaline and lust. Nowadays, it was different - more private. Sure, Poe could still occasionally pull him in for some serious making out when they were in public, but it wasn’t… Something had changed. As if Poe could no longer show desire for Kylo’s body in front of others, as if it had become something to hide, as if… As if other people’s opinions suddenly mattered. It was a good thing they usually never went anywhere when Poe came around. It let Kylo pretend it wasn’t like that, that it was as it used to be. Because at least in private, Poe was still as vocal as ever about exactly how much he loved fucking Kylo six ways from Sunday at any given opportunity.

And a part of Kylo felt shitty for feeling like that, because it wasn’t as if Poe was acting like a jerk towards him. Quite the opposite; he was always sweet, kind, really helpful, and very good at handling the boring everyday aspects of being in the same space as Kylo for longer than five minutes. He still treated Kylo the same way as he’d always done, and he always brought good stuff with him from their favourite shops, cooked and cleaned, and didn’t so much as flinch when Kylo had bad days and worse moments. He really should be grateful. Because there were good things between them. They knew each other so well, and he could relax with Poe in a way he couldn’t really manage with a lot of other people. The sex was great, and somehow Poe could even manage to stay hard when he fucked Kylo in broad daylight, could still get off from it despite having to look at Kylo’s disfigured body.

Yeah, he should be fucking grateful. Being wanted was a luxury he knew better than to take for granted. A lot of people in his position didn’t even get that much.

Poe noticed the shift in his expression, and caressed his face before kissing him deeply.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured against his lips. “No frowns. I’m here to take good care of you, ‘kay? Come on, lemme see a smile, so I have something nice to think about while I’m drowning in fishermen and little old ladies at the store.”

“You’re so fucking cheesy, you know that?” Kylo smiled despite himself. “There. I smiled. Now, get your ass down to the store before all the people with kids get there. You’ll be stuck in line for hours.”

“Good point.” Poe stole another kiss - a deep, intense one that had them both out of breath by the time they parted. “I’ll be back in a little, babe. Don’t tear the house down while I’m gone.”

“Fuck you.”

“No. Fuck _you_ \- as soon as I get back.”

He winked, before turning to go grab his jacket and shoes. Kylo groaned, putting a pillow over his head. Sometimes Poe was just… just a fucking _man-sized twelve year-old_ , and Kylo went and left himself wide open to it every damn time.

\-----

This time, Hux was prepared when he took the turn-off on Eagle Lake, but thank god he didn’t have to be - Ben’s driveway had decided to start drying up by then. He’d given Ben some time to cool down, occupied with his own tasks of getting the electric and water hooked up once he’d transferred the house into his name and calling in a repairman to work on the vents. That had seemed the best choice, since there hadn’t exactly been an invitation to come back when he’d pulled out of Ben’s place. Satisfied with his progress, he rolled down the window, letting the smell of sweet white violets roll in on temperate air, patches of the little white flowers dotting the hillside. What a difference a few days could make; the yard surrounding Ben’s house was still overgrown, but now the wild grasses were interspersed with flower buds, an early-returning robin pecking at the roof of the storage shed, searching for dinner in the spaces between the shingles.

Where before the house had looked like a piece of run down shit; now it looked almost quaint. If you squinted.

With the improvement in the weather, the Ram navigated the hard-packed dirt of the driveway easily, the only evidence of the total wash-out from last week the tracks that remained where Hux had gotten himself stuck. He could still recognize the tread of his tires in the darker swatches of mud that hadn’t dried hard yet, though the ruts weren’t quite as deep as he’d thought they looked that day.

Really, it wasn’t such a bad location when the sky wasn’t opening up on you, Hux thought. He was able to pull his truck up right beside the shed this time, the grasses rippling as he cut through them, bending and swishing at the sides of his truck. It was right on the edge of the woods, with probably a good acre of property that offered plenty of opportunity for landscaping if you wanted to put the work in. No neighbors in sight, but close enough to downtown that it was walkable. Nah, aside from the driveway, he couldn’t complain about the plot of land Ben had chosen; it was the house that gave him fits.

When he jumped down from the cab, the grass met his knees, brushing the thighs of his jeans, and Hux was careful to keep a lookout for any snakes that might have hidden in it. It was probably still too early in the year - they preferred the warmer weather of June and July - but you could never be too careful out in the grass like this. Too many places where they could hide. Parked out in front of the house there was a second vehicle, one he hadn’t seen the first time he’d visited. He didn’t recognize the make, but it was something fast-looking and sporty, its hood pulled up as close to the porch as it could get without actually touching it, and Hux slowed as he drew up on the chrome bumper, bending his knees when he went around the side to peer in the windows, feeling like the world’s biggest snoop. He really should have acted like the thirty year old he was, should have turned away from the sportscar and marched straight up to the door, but instead he crouched further, pressing his nose against the glass.

The tint on the windows made it difficult to see what the car looked like inside, though Hux could make out a driver’s side seat that was reclined so far back the person in it might as well have been stretched out laying down, as well as a collection of papers and belongings that took up the whole backseat and a half empty iced coffee in the cup holder. There was no way this was Ben’s car, he knew that right away. He couldn’t have even gotten into it, it was so small and low to the ground, and Hux’ neck prickled at the thought of someone else inside that house with him, someone else sitting on his shitty couch and enduring Ben’s shitty temper. Ben had _visitors_ . People he spent time time with. People who spent time with _him_ who weren’t Finn.

He wasn’t sure why that surprised him - Finn couldn’t have been his only friend in town, even if Ben didn’t get out much - and he was even less sure why it turned him into the kind of person who snuck around outside their ex’s house in broad daylight, peeking in the windows of strangers’ cars.

Hux frowned, looking around to make sure he hadn’t been caught before straightening up and running a stalk of grass through the nails of his thumb and pointer finger, the motion dislodging the seed pods at the top. They took to the breeze only briefly, sticking themselves to the pocket of Hux’ shirt as he inhaled the smell that clung to his fingers, making no effort to brush them off. _Yellow Foxtail._ Hux hadn’t smelled it in years, and he plucked another stalk, sticking the end of it into his mouth and crunching down with his teeth until the hard outer shell made a popping sound.

He didn’t know exactly what he was going to say to Ben yet. _Something that won’t piss him off even more,_ that had been Finn’s sage advice, but look how that had worked out - though that probably had more to do with him than the advice itself, Hux admitted, finally abandoning the car and taking a careful step onto the porch. He could probably at least start with not destroying any more of Ben’s belongings, he thought when his eyes landed on the doorknob, which didn’t look to have been properly repaired as much as shoved back into place. One wrong move and Hux bet it would fall right off again, so he gave it a wide berth. Someone was going to break it for good - but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.

The knock he gave the door was as careful as his steps onto the porch, and he fought the urge to straighten his checked Oxford button-up as he waited, suddenly conscious of the way it had wrinkled on the drive over. He really should have thought this over better. Because what the _fuck_ was his plan for when that door opened?

_‘Hey Ben! I know you aren’t interested in me helping fix your place, so I thought you might wanna stay in mine instead since yours is such a shithole. How’s that sound?’_

Yeah, sure, that wasn’t going to get him banned from the property for life at all - but it was too late for him to wish he’d used even an ounce of the sense that had led him to get the hell out of Bar Harbor in the first place. He’d left that back at the airport. The door was already creaking open, and he leaped back, out of the way, words spilling out before Ben could get a glimpse of his face and decide to slam it shut again.

“Kylo, he said, “I know last time I was here I probably didn’t leave the best taste in your mouth, and it looks like you have compan-”

His words died in his throat. The person behind the door _definitely_ wasn’t Ben.

He was approximately half his height - okay, that might have been exaggerating, but he and Ben had to have at least a good foot on the guy. Even from the wrong end of the step up into the house, Hux was looking down at him. He was barefoot, his feet too big for his height and sticking out from from under washed-out jeans, with an untucked black wifebeater and a leather jacket left open to expose a glimpse of toned and tanned shoulders. Hux had to admit he was attractive. Easy on the eyes, with a ready smile on a forgiving mouth and big, brown doe eyes under coarse hair that needed a barber about two weeks ago, and Hux’ pulse jumped in his neck. Whether because Hux still got a case of the nerves when in the presence of someone he thought was hot, or because the person he thought was hot was currently standing in Ben’s doorway and was likely the driver of the sportscar bearing prints from his nose, Hux was in no condition to decide.

The ( _there was no denying it, goddammit_ ) handsome stranger’s belt had only made it through two of the belt loops on his jeans. He held the end of the black leather strip in his hand, shimmying his hips to encourage it through the third, though he didn’t bother with the buckle. Instead, he just left it hanging open, quirking that mouth at Hux like he knew something he didn’t - which was when Hux noticed he hadn’t bothered with the fly of his jeans either.

His pulse quickened further, blood pounding in his ears.

There were only two reasons this guy could have come to the door looking like this: either he had just gotten done taking a piss, or he and Ben shared the kind of relationship where it was acceptable to run around with your pants unbuttoned. And judging by the satisfied look on Ben’s face when Hux peeked inside the door to see him spread out on the bed in only a pair of drawstring sweatpants, head propped up on one arm, Hux had a pretty good guess of which one it was.

“I was, uh-” Hux wiped a hand over his face, trying to erase the mental image of the things that might have happened in that bed and how long they might have been happening for. “Probably should have called ahead, huh?” Under Hux’ collar, the back of his neck was growing hot. “I was just looking for, uh - for Kylo.”

When he got his answer, the satisfaction in that easy smile matched Ben’s, the guy’s tongue running over his front teeth as he reached for a pair of sunglasses left by the door and set them on top of his head.

“Oh, yeah, go ahead!” The leather jacket-wearing underwear model in Ben’s doorway moved to the side just as Hux did, then laughed good-naturedly when they were left face to face again. He gestured past him, back to the side of the door they’d just moved from, while Hux flinched in embarrassment. “He’s inside, you can head on in. Just be nice to him, yeah? He’s, eh, pretty tired.” But before he could accept the invitation, Ben’s visitor had moved in closer to his face, slipping the mirrored lenses of his glasses down over his eyes and tilting his chin up, exposing the underside of his jaw, which was speckled with the hint of a five o’clock shadow. There was a ring of keys rattling in his grasp that Hux didn’t remember seeing him pick up. “Hey, wait a minute… Ain’t you that Caleb guy? The preacher’s son? ‘Cause in that case I’m not sure I should let you in.”

Hux could see the reflection of his own face, tense-jawed, in the lenses of his glasses, and he made a conscious effort to unclench his teeth.

“That’s pretty vague,” he said. “This damn town’s got a church on every corner. There’s no shortage of preachers in Bar Harbor, and I’m sure a good few of them have sons. If that’s what you’re looking for, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one.” Inside the house, Ben made it no secret that he was listening, leaned over further on his arm, head tilted toward the door. Hux watched him over him over the stranger’s leather-jacket clad shoulder. “Anyway, my dad died in ‘09. I’ve got no idea who’s preaching over at the Baptist Church now, so I wouldn’t be the guy to ask if he has a son.”

He worked his jaw, loosening it, the hair on his arms prickling where he’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows on the way over. Hux couldn’t explain his sudden need to assert his dominance over this guy he’d barely met. It was typical alpha-male behavior - stupid as hell - two dogs slogging through the mud, nipping at each other’s backs, and all because Ben was watching. He should have known better. Ben hadn’t appreciated it those times he’d gotten it into his head to start strutting around campus, letterman jacket like peacock plumage, back when Hux had checked his summer strawberry hair in every locker mirror in the hallway. That had never impressed him, and it would tick him off even more now, when Hux didn’t have any sort of claim to Ben at all.

“Listen,” Hux sighed, trying not to think about the way the guy in Ben’s doorway occupied the space, like he knew his way around it. Because if he did, he’d have to admit this wasn’t a one-time thing. Whoever this person was, he’d been here before - often enough that he knew just where his shoes were nestled next to the door. _He_ would never have broken the doorknob off, Hux thought bitterly, hoping there was something _really_ unattractive about him when he took his clothing off. “Yes. Yeah, alright, I’m Caleb. _Was_ Caleb. Happy? You’ve probably heard all kinds of shit about me - and I probably deserve at least two-thirds of it. The other one-third is because Be- _Kylo_ exaggerates when he gets mad.”

“Anyway-” Hux had no idea if what he was saying was the right thing but he had no choice but to bank on Ben’s fierce independence and hope it applied to Kylo as well. “Kylo can decide for himself if he wants to talk to me, don’t you think? If he wants to tell me to get the hell out, he knows he can say it to my face. I don’t care what happened, this one doesn’t need you to do it for him. Seems like his mouth still works well enough, anyway. So if you’re trying to protect him - don’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, Hux thought he caught Ben in the beginning of a smile, his own mouth twitching in response before Ben steeled his face again, looking sour. Too late. Point one in favor of Caleb Hux, and he allowed himself a full-fledged grin. “He hates that shit.”

Hux was the only one smiling; the other man’s expression looked a good deal less satisfied, even though _his_ car was the one parked next to Ben’s porch and _he_ was the one in Ben’s house while Hux stood outside the door. The way he puffed out his chest under the painted on fabric of that wife beater said he wanted to tell Hux where to shove it, but he must have thought better of whatever retort he’d been planning, because he just turned to throw a concerned look at Ben, angled just enough that Hux was left staring directly at the back of his shoulder.

“Babe,” he called, louder than he really needed to, and behind him, Hux rolled his eyes. The house was small enough he bet they could have carried on a conversation from one end of it to the other without making such a goddamned production out of it. “That Caleb guy is here to see you. You want me to tell him to leave, or will you be okay with him here? You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

The look on Ben’s face was one Hux knew well. Sure, the scar splitting it might have belonged to Kylo, but the bored frown that pulled between his brows was all Ben. Hux had been faced with that every time he’d gotten full enough of himself to insist he had half a chance at throwing shot put for anything other than the girls’ junior high team. The only consolation was that it wasn’t directed solely at him this time; Ben looked every bit as unimpressed with Mr. Leather Jacket Wearing Underwear Model as he did with Hux.

“It’s okay,” he said eventually. “Let him in. He’s way more stubborn than you are, anyway - there’s no point in trying to keep him out.” Hux flinched in the face of Ben’s exasperation, watching the exchange. This other guy was an idiot if he thought he didn’t have reason to as well with Ben looking at them like that. “And knock it off with that macho behaviour, yeah? You look like fucking idiots.”

“You sure you’re gonna be okay, baby?” Yup, Hux decided, an idiot. The pet name rankled, Hux’ nose wrinkling. He’d never used used anything like that for Ben. Ben was just Ben. Or _Solo,_ when they were taunting each other on the sixth lap around the track, Ben outpacing him easily. Or _asshole,_ when Hux was tackling him, trying to wrestle the flyer announcing the state track and field standings out of his hand, right after they’d been posted. Or _buddy,_ when Ben’s hand slipped into his as they walked along next to Finn, sharing a grape soda and never talking about it after. And maybe once, when Ben was asleep, the sounds of his Uncle Luke puttering about drifting up from the kitchen, _mine -_ but Ben had never heard. “I don’t wanna come back and see you hurt.”

“Yes, Poe,” Ben sighed, his hands on either side of him on the bed, muscles bunching in his forearms as he pushed himself up into a seated position. He shook his head, hair escaping his loosely knotted bun. “I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. Go to the fucking store, alright? I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, babe.” Then, this Poe guy turned to face him again, patting the pockets of his jacket until he was satisfied he’d found his wallet, while Hux wondered what kind of a name that was anyway. “No funny business, okay?”

A stupid one, he thought, disappointed when Ben’s voice stopped him from saying so. That was what it was.

“Poe. Stop prancing and go,” the familiar voice ordered, and Hux was at least allowed the pleasure of watching as, over Poe’s shoulder, Ben hid his face in his hand. “Jesus Christ.”

Poe - who was, surprisingly, indeed capable of following directions - left the door open behind him when he went, blowing Ben a kiss through his fingers, his feet thumping so hard on the porch Hux could hardly believe one of them didn’t punch right through the rotten boards. A few friendly honks from the horn of the sportscar and the catch of tires on packed dirt, and then Hux was left alone in the house with Ben, only the sound of those determined robins singing outside to break the silence between them. Ben didn’t acknowledge him, his hands coming up to smooth his hair. There were lines on his face, around his mouth, that Hux had never seen before.

When Hux reached behind him to shut the door after Poe, the knob rattled threateningly, a little more askew than it had been before, but it didn’t fall.

“Phew,” he sighed, a crooked smile exposing a flash of his front teeth, overbite long corrected at the little house that passed for a dentist’s office on Cottage Street. The air inside the house felt heavy and more damp than the air outside, and he wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans, tongue twisting itself into knots without the distraction Poe had created. “He seems…” Hux searched for an acceptable adjective and came up empty. _“Nice_.”

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Kylo snorted. “But that ain’t exactly a surprise - it seems I only fall for complete assholes.”

He took deep satisfaction in watching the hit land perfectly, Caleb flinching and seeming suddenly very interested in the shape of the floorboards. It was petty, and Kylo knew it, but he couldn’t give less of a shit about it right now. It hadn’t exactly been on his wishlist for today to have those two - the only two exes of his that _meant_ something - having a dick measuring contest in his fucking doorway. He refused to acknowledge for now all the conflicting emotions their exchange had set off in him. It felt nice to have someone else give Caleb a hard time too, someone who backed him up, but at the same time Poe knew damn well that Kylo wasn’t some fucking damsel in distress who needed him to chase away the big scary men for him.

That had always been an issue for him and Poe; Poe _loved_ getting to prance around and show off, to let everyone know that the only one who’d get to get Kylo naked was him. At least, as long as it was still fun. Poe never dealt well with serious shit, and Kylo knew he probably wouldn’t deal with this situation any differently. Caleb had _definitely_ been filed under ‘serious shit,’ so Poe had handled it just fine back then, when the ginger asshole currently looking like a lost puppy over by the door was just a guy from Kylo’s past - just a face in some photos Kylo refused to talk about until you’d gotten a good few drinks in him. But now he was here, and real, and obviously a threat to Poe’s chances of getting laid tonight, and that meant a high risk of Poe being cranky, clingy, and just annoying as heck to deal with for a day or so.

It had been bad enough the day before, when Hettie had dropped by for her scheduled visit to help Kylo with his books and inventory. He and Poe had thankfully both been dressed, and in separate corners of the couch when she walked in - there had been times when they hadn’t been quite that lucky. Hettie hated Poe, and Kylo didn’t blame her. She had an eerie knack for reading people, and Poe hadn’t exactly been an exception. As soon as he’d left, the very first time they’d met, Hettie had sat Kylo down for a talk about him, and told him exactly what sort of person he was, and how he was anything but good for him. It hadn’t helped matters that Kylo had just shrugged and told her he already knew. Because he did. None of the things Hettie had said had been news to him, but he was used to it, and he could handle it. Hettie didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much she could do about it - Kylo, young as he had been back then, was an adult.

That sure didn’t stop her and Poe from butting heads every single time he came to visit though. Because Poe didn’t like her either. He never liked anyone who ruined the fun. And that time Hettie had called him an ‘ego-centric, sex-crazed, sleaze-bag, who deserved to have his balls chopped off for taking advantage of people’ hadn’t fucking helped. To say that things got tense whenever they were in the same space would have been the understatement of the year.

… And that wasn’t even touching on the whole situation with Caleb. ‘Situation’ wasn’t really the right word. It was more like ‘absolute clusterfuck.’

_Fucking great_.

“Before you ask,” he continued, not entirely sure why it felt important to point it out, “he’s not my boyfriend.” Then, trying to cover the sudden realization that he was shirtless, with not only all of his ugly-ass scars on display, but the metric fuckton of hickeys and bitemarks left all over him by Poe as well, he reached for a cigarette. As he lit it, he changed position on the bed - back against the wall, knees drawn up enough that he could rest his arms on them while he smoked. He hadn’t smoked back then - wouldn’t even have thought of trying - but out of all the bad habits he got himself in college, this was probably one of the better ones. At least it should hopefully distract Caleb from his anything but attractive body. If the smoking didn’t, maybe his tattoos would. Caleb had hated that shit way back when… Or, at least so he’d claimed.

“What’re you doing here, anyway? I thought you’d run off back home to L.A. by now.” Caleb looked like he didn’t know what the fuck to do with himself, still hovering by the door, shifting from foot to foot, scratching his neck awkwardly. Kylo sighed, pointing to the couch. “And for fucks sake, don’t just fucking stand there and hover like that. It’s annoying. If you’re gonna talk, sit the fuck down, and talk.”

There were still some sprinting tendencies in him, Kylo thought, as Caleb hurried out of his shoes with really impressive fucking speed - but then ruined it all by taking by far the least quick route to the couch. It was as if he had some overwhelming urge to step over as many of Kylo’s piles of things as he could in one go. Fucking ridiculous.

“Well, I...” Caleb began when he sat down on the armrest, looking for all as if the couch was gonna try to eat him. “Plans have changed. Some sort of arbitration bullshit with the house. They’re calling in someone to appraise the place and everything.” That same stupid, unsure smile again. “Looks like I’m gonna be here for a while.”

“That must be _so_ hard for you,” Kylo said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “It must be hell to be stuck here with all of us losers again. I’d say I’m sorry for you, but I’m not. You made us all one hell of a messy bed, and it’s only fair you get to lie in it too.”

He took a deep drag of the cigarette, watching a thousand different emotions fight each other all over Caleb’s face, as his eyes were fixed on the smoke in Kylo’s hand and the practiced motions with which he brought it to his mouth, and then back down again. There was disapproval, probably of the whole smoking thing - Caleb always was more of a health nut than him, and if he a was doctor now, it had probably only gotten worse - and there was anger, embarrassment, and… guilt?

“That’s what I’m trying to do! If you’d just let me- _argh!_ ” Caleb started, then lost cut himself off with a groan. It was weird to see him be the one struggling for words. It always used to be the other way around - Kylo being shy and quiet, and Caleb rattling off opinions and come-backs like machine-gun fire. It felt oddly… wrong. “I’m here, alright? Whether you like it or not, you and I are both back in Bar Harbor. Just like old times, right? Shit, this place sure has a way of-” Suddenly, he shut up, gnawing on his lip. “You hate me. Alright, man, I get it. But you didn’t _always._ Kylo, this is _me._ Caleb. I know when I- I know when you- you need _help,_ buddy. And you’re not gonna get it from… from that guy.”

“And I already told you I’m not gonna be enabling whatever fucking saviour complex you got going on. I’m not gonna let you use me again. It was bad enough the first time around - I ain’t about to let there be a second.” He gave a smile so bitter he could taste it on his tongue. “I’m not that overly forgiving naive idiot I used to be anymore, and you haven’t given me a single fucking reason why I should trust a damn word you say.”

“Then don’t!” Caleb threw his hands up in the air. “Don’t fucking trust me then! _Goddammit,_ why did you always have to be so… so… I’m not asking for you to let me watch your back while you sleep. I’m asking for you to let me help you fix a goddamn doorknob and put in some new floorboards on your porch so you don’t kill your stupid self! People hire _strangers_ to do that!”

“Hell fucking _no_!” Kylo objected, both hands up in a warding off sort of gesture. “No way! Sure, you’re right - Poe wouldn’t know his way around a hammer to save his fucking life - but I’ve seen you try to do repairs. You’re worse than he is, and I’d like to keep my house standing, thank you. And I’m about as thrilled about owing gratitude to you as I am of the thought of going back and reliving that summer. Ain’t fucking happening. You go try and save someone else. I don’t need saving, and I don’t want it. Not from you, not from anyone.”

Kylo was seriously starting to wonder if he should be keeping records of how many times you needed to tell this new-but-exactly-the-fucking-same version of Caleb something before it caught on. He was so fucking tired of people, well-meaning, stupid, ableist shitheads, trying to save him, fix him, coddle him… Just tired of people doing anything but treating him as an actual fucking adult, capable of taking care of his own fucking self. Sure, he still had days when his memory and focus was all jacked up, and sure, he still got those freaky fucking black-outs when he lost an hour or five, but they only happened a few times a year now. Sure, there were also the migraines and the fatigue that left him reeling, shaking and wobbly for days - but none of those things kept him from being perfectly capable of handling himself and his life. If he needed help, he asked for it. He was a person, not a charity project for rich people with saviour complexes who wanted to score ally points, or some goddamn inspiration porn. It was bad enough having to deal with Luke’s less than helpful ideas for curing him.

That was one of the reasons he could stand having Poe in his house for more than a day at a time. Poe was shit at dealing with anything that was actually serious, but Kylo preferred his childishness and carefree attitude, his determined pursuit of fun and pleasure, and his unapologetic refusal to bother with responsibilities and duties over all of that other bullshit. Sure, he couldn’t trust Poe to be there when he needed him, but wasn’t that the story of his life anyway? Everyone left him, usually when he needed them the most. Poe was just another name on an already long-ass fucking list. Kylo could take care of himself - he had a lot of practice.

But Caleb was looking at him like he was crazy, redness creeping up his neck, as if he was trying to keep himself from throwing an absolute hissy fit.

“Oh, you have gotta be… _look,_ I know, you’re trying to make a point here” he managed. Kylo just raised an eyebrow, taking another drag of his cigarette. “But it’s a shitty one. Kylo, man, come on. You don’t need help? Just who the fuck do you think you’re fooling?” Caleb cocked his head, waiting. “Me?” The shoulders of that preppy-ass fucking shirt raised in a shrug. “Okay, maybe I was incognito for too much of it, but I’ve known you for like _twenty years_. _Look_ at this place! You can’t tell me you chose this. It might work on somebody else, but on the guy who listened to you moan every time Luke took your laundry out of the dryer and left it in a pile on the porch? Who lost his shit because it got all wrinkled? Uh-uh. No way. Not happening here.”

“Look, you have a front porch and a doorknob that need fixing. I’ve got two hands with nothing but time on them. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t spend a few hours of it helping out somebody I _royally_ fucked over in the past?” Kylo could think of more than a few really fucking excellent reasons, but Caleb apparently wasn’t finished yet, and Kylo knew better than to try and stop him when he was on a rant. “Sounds like karma to me. Seriously, I’m just being logical here. Let’s say we just leave the door. What’s your plan if something happens? What if the house catches fire? I mean, clearly the smoking in bed thing doesn’t bother you, so it’s a possibility.” The look he gave Kylo’s cigarette was pointed, and Kylo just as pointedly took another deep drag - blowing smoke circles, just because he could. “How you plan to get out? Just pray the doorknob turns and the porch holds? I’m sorry, but that’s not very reassuring.”

“Well, that would hardly be a tragedy,” Kylo said, reaching over to his nightstand to put the cigarette out, and immediately going for a new one. “At least it’d save me the trouble of trying to get out of bed in the mornings.”

It might not have been the smartest thing he ever said, because Caleb looked about ready to pass out.

“No. There’s no way you mean that!” he sputtered. “Kylo, don’t you dare pull that shit on me. I know you’re pissed, but it’s not cute and it’s not fucking funny, okay? I don’t wanna hear that, not from you.”

Kylo just shrugged, but Caleb had gone from bright red to greenish white, and Kylo decided he wasn’t in the mood to deal with whatever reaction might come if he didn’t redirect it somehow.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Look, why are you so goddamned obsessed with helping me? I’m telling you I don’t want or need it, and you keep nagging about it. It’s fucking annoying.” When Caleb didn’t immediately respond, Kylo leaned his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling for a few moments, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“Alright,” he sighed, too tired to deal with any of this shit right now, and increasingly pissed that he kept having to. The universe was obviously out to get him. “If I let you fix the damned porch and the door, will you leave me the fuck alone? No calls for favours, no guilt tripping about gratitude or any of that shit?”

“None of it.” There was an audible sigh of relief, some sort of normal color returning to Caleb’s cheeks. “Just the porch. And the door. And maybe that one hole in the roof that was really giving you trouble. It looked like it was about to drip on your easel last time I was here.” Kylo opened his mouth to tell him that sure as fuck wasn’t part of the deal, but the rest of Caleb’s words rushed out before he could, his hands raised placatingly. “But that’s it, I swear.”

The expression on his face was half-wince, half… half that stupidly charismatic piece of shit smile _that Kylo had worked damn hard to not think about for approximately ten years_. Groaning inwardly, Kylo resigned himself to the fact that there was no winning this. Caleb would just keep nagging until he gave in, anyway. It might be the smarter idea to just let him have at it until he grew bored of it, and ran back to L.A. A few days of annoyance at having to watch him try to use practical skills that had only ever been questionable at best wasn’t such a high price to pay if it meant Kylo could have his peace and quiet back. But make no mistake, if Caleb fucked anything up worse than it already was, Kylo would make damn sure he paid for it when they had to call in the professionals.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But I ain’t paying for it, and I ain’t helping you with it. You’re on your own. So long as you don’t make shit worse.” He gave Caleb an exasperated look. “And stop fucking smiling.”

\-----

When Caleb had (finally) left, to do whatever the fuck he did when he wasn’t annoying the life out of Kylo, Kylo went over to his worktable to see if he could get some work done. He was tired and sore, but he knew he needed to do something to pass the time until Poe came back. Something that kept him focused enough that his mind wouldn’t go to weird places, but that wasn’t too challenging either, lest he just make himself even more frustrated and annoyed. Some digging around in his shelves and drawers produced a bunch of good quality lapiz lazuli beads in different shapes that he’d been meaning to do something with for ages, but hadn’t quite gotten around to. Maybe if he paired them up with some of those little hematite beads, or maybe the rose quartz ones, he could make a few pairs of earrings. Something classy looking for the rich old ladies who flooded the area in the summer. Some smaller ones for the kids who could wear earrings, too, maybe.

Turning his Rancid playlist on, Kylo got to work.

\-----

The docks were exactly as Hux had remembered them, long planks of well-worn wood extending out into smooth water, clear as glass. The ocean this far up the coast was idyllic, made for the wealthy tourists who spent their summers here. It only got choppy when the weather was bad - during those storms in the early spring, the ones that made the wind pick up and the thunder roll, and then in the winter, when the waves raised rough and grey as the sky, the whites of their heads breaking before they ever reached even the little boats tethered farthest out and sending the docks bobbing and swaying with their movement anyway.

Today, the water was as calm as Sunday afternoon - church services finished up for the day and dads with beer bellies relaxing in lawn chairs out back while the kids played touch football in the yard, the only chore that needed doing accomplished by taking a rag and bucket of soapy water to the car in the driveway - and Hux stood with his arms crossed, leaned against a post where a Boston Whaler was tied, rocking gently. It was a mid-size fishing boat, a few years away from new. Nothing fancy, though the cabin looked roomy enough, fully enclosed on all sides by panes of tempered glass, with space on the helm of the deck for at least five or six people to make an afternoon of fishing under the June or July sun, and Hux envied its owner, the dock hardly moving beneath his feet as he considered why Finn had suggested he meet him here.

Finn hadn’t mentioned having a boat when Hux had caught him in the driveway to his house, asking for thirty minutes of his time and a handful of his advice. Just told him the number on the dock post and the time to be there. Had had nothing to say about going out on the water at all, and when Finn arrived, it was clear he had no plans to. Hux had dressed for the water, but Finn must have come straight from work, still dressed in the navy shorts he wore on his routes, USPS stitched into the pocket of his shirt. He’d already put his ballcap back on his head, though - and he wasn’t alone.

Mitaka, the same height as Finn but slighter across the shoulders and chest, with small, sharp eyes and a smaller, sharper nose, trailed a few steps behind, much like he had in school, the two of them a matched set, Mitaka slim where Finn was sturdy, whip-quick and nervous where Finn kept steady pace. He was the type of guy who always looked like he expected the worst, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble - the type of guy who looked like, if he hung a few steps back, it was because he’d rather give Finn, all charisma and charm and a barrel chest that made it look like he worked out way more than he did, the chance to defend him than have to defend himself. He was also the type of guy whose quiet demeanor and twitchy way of looking at you didn’t mean a damn word of those assumptions was true.

Hux had spent near as much time with ‘Taka as he had Finn and Ben once he’d come to realize that, watching the smallest of them put away baskets of fish and chips like he had a hole in his leg that let it all drop right out onto the floor in the corner booth of his parents’ restaurant. The fourth corner of their square, the final of their horsemen, the… Donatello to their Teenage Mutant Mutant Ninja Turtles. The leg they hadn’t known they’d needed for their pop-up card table to sit right. ( _Literally._ There wasn’t a card night it didn’t threaten to collapse until they’d discovered Mitaka liked to keep his knee wedged up under the thing, making their solo cups of green gatorade vibrate with the nervous jumping of his leg.)

Hux hadn’t invited him along, and equal parts shaken and pleased in a warm way he couldn’t deny, he set his face into a shit-eating grin, spreading his arms wide, like he had that night he’d talked ‘Taka into breaking into the cooler at his parents’ place and raiding it for beer. They’d almost gotten away with it too, until two nights later, when one of the dishwashers ratted them out. Mitaka had spent the next two weeks after school washing all the dishes at _Galyn’s_ himself, and it had taken him another week after that to forgive Hux for suggesting the idea in the first place.

“Boys!” he greeted, hoping it would pan out better for him this time, the two of them coming to stand shoulder to shoulder in front of him, bracketing Hux in front of the docking post. For the first time, it felt strange not to have Ben next to him, his absence tangible - a patch of nothing that felt like something. They might have never had a problem hanging out in pairs, but whenever three of them got together, the balance shifted, something out of whack in the universe, their card table wobbling. They’d never discussed it, but Hux couldn’t have been the only one who noticed.

Except, he thought, maybe he was - at least now - his smile wavering at the easy way his two friends fell in next to each other. Wasn’t it said structures built on three legs were the sturdiest? And there’d only been three amigos, after all.

Neither of them answered, Mitaka tanner than Hux remembered him, the cuffs of his shirt rolled up past his elbows to reveal freckles that hadn’t been there before. He looked more at home on the dock than Hux had ever seen him before, his feet planted with a confidence that said he knew his footing out here on the water and his body moving with the slight rocking of the dock rather than fighting against it.

“So...” Hux whistled between his teeth. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, refusing to acknowledge the less than friendly reception he’d just received from a guy he’d once seen run out of the tent they’d convinced him to share with them in just his striped boxer briefs after an encounter with a pissed off hornet. “Finn, you talked to our good buddy ‘Taka here about getting his old man to set us up with some fried fish bites for our July 4th shindig yet? Don’t wanna wait on it too long - that kind of stuff has a way of creeping up on you.”

Finn cocked his head, catching the suspicious glance Mitaka threw in his direction with the corner of his eye. “Wait” he said. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna be here for that. Weren’t you supposed to be headed out of town, like… today?”

“I was hoping for yesterday,” Hux answered honestly. He rocked onto the heels of his boat shoes again, looking pained. “But then I realized I hadn’t seen ‘Taka here yet, and I promised him if we ever got separated, I wouldn’t go too long without letting him whoop my ass in a game of _MarioKart N64_.” When he turned his eyes on Mitaka, his friend was nodding.

“The only true MarioKart,” Mitaka agreed solemnly, an autopilot response Hux knew he’d never lose. Hux could have just come back from tap dancing on his favorite grandmother’s grave, and Mitaka still would have answered him the same way.

“I figured ten years and some-odd days was getting pretty close to too long.” The response was flippant, the apology within it left unspoken - but even buried in Hux’s sarcasm, it was still so weighty that Hux followed it up with a roll of his eyes in Finn’s direction, just in case Mitaka uncovered it for himself. “You know how weepy he gets when we don’t keep our promises.”

Finn chuffed a deep laugh at that, shaking his head as he looked down at his feet. He’d exchanged his brown leather postman’s shoes for a pair of twisted cord thongs, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening with his smile. Those were new, Hux noted, and Finn ran a hand over his face. The asshole had always found something to grin about - now, the evidence of his good nature tugged at his skin, made itself at home in the folds that had started to form by his nose. Luckily for Finn, the laugh lines looked damn good on him; they gave his friend’s face a homely, lived-in quality. Sure, Finn’s might not have been the kind of face you would seek out in a crowd, not if you didn’t know him, but Hux had to admit it wasn’t a bad one to have looking at him from the other side of the dock when Finn bent at the middle to slap his knee. That was what mattered.

“It was one time!” Mitaka protested, the shells of his ears going red under his dark hair. They’d never talked about stuff like this when they were kids - the serious shit that couldn’t be cured over a basket of grease-glistening fries served in a paper tray and some malt vinegar pooling in the corners of the wax paper. It was easier to latch onto the familiarity of older wrongs whose tenderness had faded. They didn’t hurt to poke at so much. “And you and Finn said you were going to teach me how to play center out on the court before we got to the basketball rotation. I almost got my ass kicked in phys-ed!” His voice was shrill. “You’re lucky I’m letting you within ten feet of my boat. Anyway, I’ve heard promises lose their meaning after a decade or so. Those things have expiration dates - kind of like friendships.”

“Jesus, Mitaka.” A gull landed on the dock post, ruffling its grey-tipped wings and calling for scraps, its caw loud and insistent. They were used to amateur fisherman cleaning their catch out here, throwing the innards out right over the sides of their boats and leaving the scales for the gulls and pelicans to pick through. It made them shameless, and Hux swished the scavenger away with an irritated flick of his hand before he’d allowed it time to call over every bird in the damn county. “Are you looking for an apology? Because Finn can tell you I’m handing them out left and right over here. Get in line; it’s all yours. I can even put it on a card if you need it in writing.”

Mitaka didn’t answer that, eyes focused on the white spot on the top of the post where the gull had taken a shit. It had started dripping down the side, and when it became clear he had no intention of looking anywhere else, Hux stepped in front of it.

“I’m here!” Exasperation made him throw his hands in the air again. “I’m back on the island. Don’t tell me you haven’t spent the last god knows how many years planning ways to get me back here so you could make me grovel for forgiveness.” Still no answer, but Mitaka’s eyes flicked to his, then went back to boring a hole through his middle, where the post stood behind him. “C’mon,” Hux implored. “I know you. You’ve been waiting to do this since 2005. This is your _chance_! Can’t you just let me try to make it up to you guys?” He swallowed hard. “Make it up to Ben?”

“Ben?” That was what it took to get him to bite. “You mean Kylo?” Mitaka looked straight at him then, his eyes narrowing and the brows above them disappearing into his hairline - one that had been high, even as a teenager. “What does this have to do with Kylo? _Finn?_ ” He sounded suspicious, and it didn’t escape Hux’ attention that Finn flinched at the way Mitaka said his name. “You didn’t say anything about Kylo figuring into this.”

“Okay-” Finn let out a whoosh of breath. “So Caleb might have already been to see Kylo, once-”

“Twice, actually,” Hux corrected, but he cut himself off when Finn shot him a look that said it was either find a way to keep his mouth shut or get ready to take a swim in his favorite boat shoes.

“But they were _short_ visits, ‘Taka. Right, Caleb? Like five minutes,” Finn added, and this time, Hux nodded dutifully, adding his silent agreement when he said said, “I’m serious, they hardly counted at all.”

Mitaka didn’t look convinced.

“ _Seriously?”_ he asked, eyebrows still raised. The smell of fish and salt was on the air; it would follow all three of them home, Hux knew. “You guys are really terrible liars. There’s no way you were this bad before, or you wouldn’t have made it to graduation without getting arrested.”

Mitaka was right about that, Hux gave him that much. His reputation as the quiet preacher’s boy wouldn’t have stood up to half the shit he’d pulled in high school, harmless as most of it had been. Baptist ministers’ sons didn’t swipe beers out of restaurant coolers, even ones owned by their friends’ parents, not any more than they hiked into the woods for hook-ups thinly disguised as camping trips, and he shrugged, smelling grouper and long burned away campfires.

“Think what you want,” he said. “He wouldn’t have let me stay any longer if I wanted to. I’m lucky I made it through the damn door. Hell, I’m surprised he hasn’t installed a bear trap right there on the porch, he hates having people inside that house so damn bad.”

Mitaka made a humming noise in the back of his throat in response. “He doesn’t hate having me in there,” he countered lightly, clearly satisfied with himself. He’d always made a really annoying face whenever he felt smug, Hux thought - it was no wonder he’d gotten himself punched so often before he’d met up with Finn - but he allowed Mitaka to have his moment, chasing his pride down with a shot of hurt at the knowledge that Ben’s reluctance to allow him inside his house was apparently personal.

“Good.” He glanced over his shoulder at the Boston Whaler bobbing along behind him, slapping at a gnat that had landed on the side of his neck and then leaving his hand there, kneading the skin between his fingers. “Then you can be the one to get me in past the couch. I’m gonna help him fix the place up a little, and there are repairs I’m gonna have a tough time getting to if I’m not allowed any further than the living room.”

When Hux turned his head to look at him again, Mitaka’s mouth was a hard line, his already thin lips getting thinner as he pressed them together.

“Absolutely not.” Beside him, Finn frowned at Mitaka’s dismissal. “You really think I’m going to help you weasel your way back into Kylo’s life? After the stunt you pulled? Wow, it really _has_ been a while since you had any idea just what was going on back here, hasn’t it?”

“I, uh-” Speechless, Hux looked to Finn for help, but none came, and Mitaka continued.

“I’m going to go out on a limb,” he said, “and assume that, since you’ve been inside the house, you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to actually pay attention to the way Kylo lives.” The familiar heat was back, creeping along his hairline, this time accompanied by what Hux was almost certain was a flush in his cheeks. “What you saw there? That’s an _improvement,_ Caleb. It’s taken him five years to get to this point - almost six. Maybe you haven’t seen the hell he’s been through, but _I_ have. I’m not going to risk that progress just so you can get rid of whatever guilt has been sitting on your chest.” When the flush of shame spread to his ears, Hux ducked his head, avoiding Mitaka’s eyes. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to find yourself another lackey, Caleb. Because this time, it won’t be me who’ll take the fall - it’ll be _him_. Maybe when you’ve been the one to wipe the sweat off his forehead from _learning to walk again_ , you’ll understand.”

Hux’ mouth was dry as July cotton when he swallowed, looking up at the backlit profiles of two of his best friends in the world. The evening had come on during Mitaka’s speech - cool and cloudy, too early in the year yet to be muggy, with a fat sun the color of sherbert - and for the first time in longer than he could remember, Maine sung in the blood that pulsed warm and steady through his bare forearms, a temptation for the gnats that gathered in clusters above the surface of the water. On a little packed dirt road just off Eagle Lake, he thought, Ben was probably closing his windows, shutting them out for the night, and despite himself, Hux smiled.

Once again, Mitaka was right; if he was going to do this, there’d be no taking it back, no high-tailing it for the mainland when the shores started closing in and shit got real. Bar Harbor played for keeps - he’d known that when he returned, and Hux took a deep breath, his lungs expanding in the cage of his ribs, hair standing up from elbow to wrist.

“I want to make the family house accessible,” he blurted after a moment, the words tumbling out in such a rush that he had to fumble to explain himself. “Like, _accessible_ accessible. The- the place my dad left me. Where I grew up. I want to make it so Kylo can stay there. So it’ll… so it’ll work for him.” Hux’ smile wobbled. He’d shocked even himself with what he’d told them. It was the first time he’d said as much out loud, the silence that came after stretching on across the endless blue Atlantic, carried by the wake of his words, cresting on waves and then falling until, finally, Mitaka was the one to break it.

“You’d better not be messing around, Caleb,” he warned. Squashing another gnat, this time in the bend of his elbow, Hux shrugged again, doing his best to ignore the sharp edge of suspicion that remained in Mitaka’s voice. “I’m serious. This isn’t a joke.”

“A joke?” Hux gave an emphatic shake of his head, the gnat now a bloody smear on his arm. His swat had come too late, and when he wiped the flattened insect away, it left a streak of red on his freckled skin. He grimaced. “I was just talking about your mom’s fish and chips.” An experimental quirk of his lips was met with an answering twist of Finn’s from across the dock. “You think I’d kid about that?”

Finn laughed out loud then, taking off his hat to scrub at the sweat that had beaded in his short hair.

“Whatcha say, ‘Taka? He’s got you there.” For some reason Hux couldn’t fathom, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Finn look happier, bent at the waist with his hat still in his hand and a grin from one ear to the other. ‘Taka’s face, on the other hand, still looked a little pissed and a lot exasperated in the way it had 90% of the time when the little geek had looked at him back when they were kids, and he raised a finger warning both Finn and Hux to shut up.

“I swear to god, preacher’s boy…” Beaten, Mitaka heaved a put-upon sigh. “You mess this up and I’ll-” Hux didn’t even let him finish. There was only one threat that had ever followed the name _‘preacher’s boy.’_

“How about this, boys? I mess this up, and I’ll kick the shit out of _myself_.”

\-----

As a punishment for his stupid prancing, Kylo had gotten Poe to clean out and prepare all ten of his large cold frames, all of them built high, so Kylo wouldn’t have to bend or reach too far, _and_ the greenhouse, so he could get his vegetables and herbs going. Poe had grumbled, but it was mostly for show. He got to put his hard earned muscles to use, and Kylo showed the appropriate amount of admiration - because, say what you want about Poe Dameron, that was a damn fine body, and Kylo had always appreciated the way those muscles moved under his skin when he did anything strenuous. His shameless admiring only lasted until everything was prepared, and then he promptly shooed Poe back inside in to shower all the dirt off, while Kylo - cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth - made plans for which seeds would go where. He’d made Poe put four of the cold frames up against the front porch, making him move his car and trim the grass a bit. But they’d always stood there, and he liked how they made the front of the house look a little bit more… _homey_ \- not that he would ever admit that.

The air was pretty warm, the sun starting to feel good against the black fabric of his worn hoodie as he rummaged through his little box of seeds he’d stored from the previous year. There were plenty of herbs and vegetables he could grow, and it always stirred some deep sense of contentment in him to envision the late summer days when everything came to full bloom. Sure, everything else in his life might be going to shit right now, but at least his garden was always there. At least this was a space that was all his. With Millicent by his feet like a bright orange guardian spirit, Kylo started planting the lavender seeds, in the cold frame directly to the left of the rickety stairs - murmuring the blessings he’d been taught by Luke during the first summer he’d spent under his guardianship, encouraging the little seeds to live and grow. He knew a lot of people would laugh at the thought of Kylo Ren practicing magic - Caleb Hux being right at the top of the list - but right here, right now, none of that mattered. Poe, Caleb, Bar Harbor, and the entire rest of the world was completely forgotten in favour of the promise of lavender, and sage, and bright summer days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to all of our lovely readers for extending their patience to us during the wait between the last chapter and this one - the past month has been... well, a hell of a ride, but we're happy to be getting chapter three out to all of you now! Things are really heating up, and we've gotta admit - we're especially proud of this one. 
> 
> As for the chapter content, Loke will be happy to explain any questions regarding the gelatin Kylo mentions using to style his hair during his conversation with Poe. He's our local expert on the whole punk aesthetic thing, and he's always willing to share! Any other questions can be directed to either of us, of course - either Cole at thegoodlannister or Loke at ficlet-machine.
> 
> We hope you're liking what you're seeing so far, and that you're having as much fun getting to know Caleb and Kylo as we are getting to write them. We'll see you all on the flip-side!


	5. Blueprint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings in this chapter include: drug use and mentions of sexual harassment.

“Holy shit, this is real.” Finn adjusted the earbuds around his neck, pulling the ends so they stuck out from the hood of his sweatshirt. He sounded incredulous. “You’re really doing this.”

“What, you didn’t believe me?” Hux smirked up his friend, bending down to tie his shoe. The breeze from off the water ruffled his hair as he secured the double knot around his index finger. It was so early the sun wasn’t fully up yet, their shadows grey on the sidewalk, Hux’ favorite time to run, though it had been some time since he’d had a partner. Most people became suddenly less interested in running with him when they learned that meant getting out of bed when the floorboards were still chilled, even in summer. Not Finn though - he had still appeared outside the door five minutes before Hux had asked, sweatband in place around his hairline.  “I told you I was gonna fix up Kylo’s house.”

Finn wasn’t speaking about that, Hux knew as he straightened up, popping his back; what he was talking about was Hux’ plan to renovate the house Finn had shown up at this morning, the one Hux had grown up in, with its wraparound Victorian porch and the two white adirondack chairs left sitting on it and the trellis up to his childhood bedroom window. Finn hadn’t spent a lot of time there. None of his friends had - whether his parents would have allowed it or not, that one night spent with Ben sleeping over had been enough to convince him not to try it again - but Hux had let slip enough that Finn must have known his relationship with the old house was complicated. Even if he hadn’t skipped town the minute the opportunity presented itself, Hux was pretty sure no one would have expected him to ever go back there, unless it was under the pain of death. Let alone to invest any money into the place.

Finn didn’t say that, though; he just leaned over into a stretch, putting his hands on his knees and looking down the street to where it ended at the docks, where they’d have to take a right and move on past the Baptist church Hux’ dad had spent three and a half decades preaching the word of Jesus Christ at.

“You’re staying here.” He still sounded like he was reciting something he couldn’t really believe. “Bar Harbor, I mean. Like, you’re setting down _roots_ here.” Finn’s eyes landed on Hux’ shoes for a moment before flickering back to the docks. “You didn’t come to town with running shoes, did you?” When he whistled from between his teeth, Hux saw a flash of white. “You must have headed into Tremont for those - and you wouldn’t have paid those shitty-ass prices unless you knew you were going to be here for a while.”

Hux didn’t think Finn needed the hooded sweatshirt; already dampness was gathering on the wiry muscles of his upper arms, tender from all the hammering he’d done the day before, if he poked at them too much. The sound of the waves lapping up around the dockposts was as soothing as anything he’d ever heard, and he let himself smile in response, pleased when he realized Finn was doing the same.

“‘Taka’s going to owe you money, isn’t he?” Hux teased, any tightness in his chest dissipating a little more with every breath of salt air he took. He crouched into a sprinting position, even though they were settling in for a distance run, feeling the tug in his hamstrings.  “He thought I was full of shit; I saw it on his face, that little fucker.”

Finn laughed at that, following suit, his stance not quite as long as Hux’, but the muscles in his legs solid and well-defined under the loose gym shorts he still favored while running.

“Forty bucks.” Next to Hux, he nodded, indicating he was ready. It wasn’t a race, exactly - but there would always be healthy competition between the two of them. The three of them, really - he and Ben and Finn, all runners first at the heart of things. Except maybe not Ben anymore, Hux thought, refusing to acknowledge that the realization felt a lot like a loss. “He wanted to bet more. Do me a favor and keep _not_ being the asshole everyone thinks you are. It’s set to make me a lot of money in the long run.”

That was a request Hux hoped he could deliver on. People didn’t expect much of him around here, it seemed, so it wasn’t like he needed to try _too_ hard to keep them pleasantly surprised. He had that much going in his favor, at least.

“You bet Mitaka on this little run, too?” he asked, still not making any promises, just in case he managed to fuck things up anyway. However low the expectations were, if anyone could manage to fall short, it was him. All you had to do was ask his dad; the guy might have been dead, but that didn’t mean he knew when to shut up. “You know, I might not spend my time coaching junior varsity track, but I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve. I haven’t spent the last ten years sitting on my ass eating twinkies. I run. I might surprise you.”

If Finn was intimidated, he didn’t show it, laughing into the pavement as he situated the earbuds in his ears and checked that the water bottle he’d attached to the side of his shorts was secure.

“Oh, please,” he said, the smile as much in his voice as on his face, “you couldn’t beat me when you were in your prime. You think you’ve got anything on me now? You’re _old._ Let’s do this, preacher’s boy.”

 _“Old?”_ But already Finn had taken off halfway down the block, the slap of his rubber soles on the pavement a rhythmic taunt. “It’s two years, you asshole!” Hux called after him, hands cupped around either side of his mouth. “What does that make you?”

No response save for another slap against the sidewalk and the bob of Finn’s head, as behind him, Hux broke into a jog - long, easy strides, the kind Ben had tried to teach him to do when races were more than a couple hundred yards. With the difference in their strides, Hux would catch up to him before long. Apparently, Finn wasn’t concerned with playing fair anymore, he thought, and he allowed himself a hearty laugh, falling out of step as he threw his head back and looked up at a sky that was opening to reveal a rising sun the color of a ripe nectarine.

\-----

“You’re being more careful with your leg than last time,” Mitaka noted as Kylo untangled himself from the elastic band he’d been using to exercise the muscles in his legs. “You’re not hurt, I hope?”

Kylo shook his head, but Mitaka knelt down to inspect his left leg nonetheless.

“Nah,” he assured him as he took the opportunity to reach for his water bottle, “I’ve just been stupid - it’s okay, I promise.” Mitaka still looked worried as he carefully poked and prodded at what was left of the muscles in Kylo’s calf, bent and stretched his knee, and motioned for him to twist his foot this way and that to check its mobility. “‘Taka, I’m okay, I promise. I’m not hurt, I’ve just had a flare-up. It’s fine.”

“You sure? I know the weather gets to you, but you just seemed a bit more… I dunno, hesitant to put as much strain on it as I know you can. We have to be careful - if it’s your prosthesis acting up, it can get tricky.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Kylo chuckled. “Not gonna lie; the weather’s been a fucking bitch, but I’ve brought this on myself, and I really don’t think it’s the prosthesis, so I don’t deserve any of that compassion.”

“What did you do?” Mitaka looked like he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know the answer, and it made Kylo chuckle again.

“Imma spare you the details,” he grinned. “But let’s just say there are certain… eh, intimate positions that don’t really work for me, and sometimes I forget that, and, well...”

Kylo had to give it to him; ‘Taka had one hell of a poker-face when he wanted to. It wasn’t really that he was a prude or anything, but he’d always been more private about stuff like that than Kylo had, and Kylo respected that. He’d never been one to purposely make his friends uncomfortable - at least not about stuff like that. ‘Taka already knew way more than he wanted to about Kylo’s sexuality (and sex life), courtesy of one Poe Dameron and his big fucking mouth.

“But to be fair,” he added, before ‘Taka’s poker-face got the chance to fail him, “I’ve been forgetting my daily exercise a lot lately, and me walking home from Finn’s party the other week really didn’t help. I guess my leg just needs to bitch at me about it.”

“I see.” ‘Taka seemed to ponder for a moment. “Obviously, as your physical therapist, this is where I’m supposed to give you a lecture about the importance of daily exercise and not being careless with yourself - but you know all that already, and I know I have a better chance at getting my mom to join the Krishna than getting you to do something you don’t want to.” He gave a wide, and completely fucking unapologetic grin. “So, consider the lecture over and done with. But I do have a suggestion. How would you feel about taking a walk down to the beach? The weather’s really nice, and if we take the route by Finn’s street both ways, it won’t be too much of a hassle.”

Kylo knew full well that the ‘hassle’ ‘Taka was referring to was other people, and it was in moments like this he was even more thankful than usual for having him in his life. ‘Taka knew how much Kylo hated being stared at, how much that first year and a half of being stuck in a wheelchair, and then trying to learn how to move around with a set of crutches that seemed to hate him as much as he’d hated them, had gotten to him. Because people _had_ stared. And whispered. Pointed and laughed. Come up to him to ask him all kinds of stupid and invasive questions. Some people had even come up to ‘Taka and Finn, and even to Hettie, to ask stuff _about_ Kylo, as if he wasn’t even there, or as if he was some sort of idiot who couldn’t speak for himself.

Ever since, attention was something Kylo would happily sell whatever fucking soul he still possessed to not have to deal with. Luckily, ‘Taka wasn’t half as much of a people person as generally assumed, and they had always had that common dislike of people to fall back on. They could always hang back and let Caleb and Finn do most of the talking. At least… At least back then. Nowadays, the situation was different.

He took a moment to stretch and gauge the state of his energy reserves before answering. It felt pretty okay, and he knew he needed to get out of the house - he hadn’t left his property since Poe had arrived, and he was feeling a bit restless. Caleb was coming by later, which was still something Kylo would much rather not think about right now, but he still had a couple of hours to go; Caleb had said something about going by the lumber-yard, and whatever the fuck else it was, so he could worry about that later. And with Poe out and about - probably raiding the store for every last bag of barbecue chips he could find - Kylo had time to play around with. There was no jewellery to make until his shipment of supplies arrived, and all his current paintings were drying, so if Kylo turned the walk down, the most exciting thing he could do was watch TV or nap - and he’d done enough of both during these past weeks to drive himself up the walls with it.

“I’m up for a walk,” he said. “Just let me get changed. I ain’t going outside in these.” He gestured to the soft gym-shorts he was wearing. “I get enough pitying stares as it is. Not gonna be stupid enough to make it worse if I can help it.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not undo all your progress by having to stop you from beating the shit out of some brat,” ‘Taka laughed. “Get changed. I’ll just go lock my car while you do that. I don’t trust the tourists - those damn barely old enough to drink brats who think everything in the world is theirs have already started to show up. We’re gonna be drowning in ‘em by midsummer, you just wait.”

Kylo chuckled as he went to find some other clothes. ‘Taka was a little old man in a 27 year old body, and he’d been grumbling and muttering about ‘kids these days’ since before they’d even graduated high school. Kylo agreed with him, it wasn’t that - he just found it very funny how so many strong opinions could fit in ‘Taka’s body at the same time without him spontaneously combusting or something.

\-----

The weather really _was_ nice, Kylo noted, when they’d made it onto Eagle Lake. Not much traffic out, at least not yet, and he was very happy to see that the flowers and trees all around were starting to show proper signs of the oncoming summer. He welcomed the warmer season; the heat was always far gentler on his body than the cold, even on the days he felt like he was simultaneously melting and being cooked from the inside out. And some evenings during the worst part of the July heat, he would even let ‘Taka drag him out to one of the lesser known little bays, to go for a swim. Well, to be fair, ‘Taka did most of the swimming - Kylo just waded out far enough be able to float around comfortably, or to throw sticks for Finn’s dog if they’d managed to drag the two of them along as well. Yeah, summer was okay.

“I’ve been thinking,” ‘Taka said, as they made it onto Cromwell Harbor Road, “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk lately, but I… Uhm, this thing with Caleb… How’re you holding up?”

Kylo focused on lighting a cigarette before answering. Yeah, how _was_ he holding up? Wasn’t that just the million dollar question.

“Dunno,” he admitted. “I wanna strangle the fucker half the time, and the other half, I-... I don’t know. Just looking at him pisses me the fuck off, and he’s just completely- I don’t-... I don’t even know what to think or do right now.” He offered the cigarette to ‘Taka, who took a drag. ‘Taka had been smoking in secret since sometime after high school, much to Kylo’s delight upon returning and finding himself a new smoking buddy, but he’d been sworn to secrecy - because, adult or not, ‘Taka’s mom would die if she found out. “He’s actually trying to fix my house,” he said as he carefully maneuvered around a giant pothole that should have been fixed about three summers back. “Can you fucking believe that? Like, he’s got _plans_ , ‘Taka. Actual plans. With lists of materials, and timelines and shit. I’m fucking scared, man.”

‘Taka choked on the smoke, and they had to stop to let him finish coughing.

“Jesus,” he wheezed eventually. “Nothing good ever comes from Caleb Hux having a plan.”

They were quiet for a while as they passed the cemetery; ‘Taka had always been creeped out by it - courtesy of a few pretty spectacular horror movie nights, watching stuff they were technically way too young for - and Kylo had been taught to honor the dead, so he always passed cemeteries in silence, clutching the agate he wore on a leather string around his neck.

“What- uhm, what exactly is he doing?” ‘Taka asked once they’d left the cemetery behind. “Like, right now? I mean, I’ve seen Caleb try to use tools, and I’m not sure I’d trust the house not to fall apart once he’s done.”

“He’s managed - somehow - to nag me into letting him rebuild the front porch. He got started yesterday, which I’m sure you noticed when you came over. And, well, he’s gonna come by later today as well.”

“Yeah, I was gonna ask why it was looking all… eh, I was gonna say worse than usual, but it’s not even _there_ anymore.”

“Oi, there wasn’t that much wrong with my porch! Not since we got rid of the ramp, anyway. Remember that time Finn face-planted when he thought he’d be nice and gimme a push up it after that Christmas dinner you had at your parents’ place? I thought he’d broken his nose, the way he was bleeding.”

‘Taka chuckled.

“How could I ever forget,” he grinned. “I got to tell him I told him so. Everyday since we installed that damn thing, I told him he had to be careful, but did he listen? No, of course not.” He reached into Kylo’s pocket for his cigarettes, lit one, and then continued. “Seriously, though,” he sighed. “I don’t mean to nag or anything, but this whole thing with Cal… It’s fucking with me quite a bit - with Finn, too, even though he’s as quick to forgive as he’s always been. I just… I guess what I want to say is that I am worried about you. I know you can take care of yourself, it’s not that, but… Caleb is sort of your kryptonite, and we both know it. I don’t trust him, and I don’t ever wanna see you hurt like that again. If he screws up, promise me you’ll tell me, and I’ll be happy to murder him and dump him at sea.”

“If you go down for murder, who the hell is gonna keep me from throwing the control through the screen when we play _Demon Souls_?” Kylo gave a crooked grin. “Besides, your mom would have a fucking stroke if you got stuck with a 25-to-life - so let’s not risk that, shall we?”

“Who said I was gonna get caught?” ‘Taka countered. “Honestly, though; if he fucks up again, tell me. I’ll handle him for you.”

Kylo put a hand on his shoulder, warmth blooming in his chest with ‘Taka’s protectiveness. Not all people were lucky enough to have someone like this in their life, and he treasured his friend more than most other things in life. Finn too, of course. It was just that Finn had way more faith in people, more readiness to forgive and forget, than ‘Taka and Kylo had, so sometimes there were things that got lost in translation between them. It didn’t in any way lessen the importance of either friendship. Kylo needed Finn’s happy, accepting, hopeful nature - his unshakeable faith in life to work out, no matter what - around him every bit as much as he needed ‘Taka’s snark and crankiness.

“I appreciate it,” he said. “This whole situation is a bitch, and I’m just trying not to let my head run away with me. I ain’t got time for some sort of existential crisis right now. I’ve got work to do.”

They changed to other subjects as they made their way down Cromwell Harbor towards the sea, and it wasn’t until they were sitting on a large rock, just by the water’s edge, that ‘Taka brought the topic up again. He must really have been concerned, Kylo mused, if he kept bringing it up. Though, he supposed, it _was_ pretty fucking concerning. This whole situation was just… _such an absolute clusterfuck_.

“Uhm, you’ve got Poe over right now.” Kylo knew that tone; ‘Taka was testing the waters. For some reason, the topic of Poe Dameron’s presence in Kylo’s life made his friend very… _wary_.

“Yeah, I do.” Kylo kept his gaze fixed on the rolling waves. The water was really peaceful today, and with the clear blue sky above, and the comfortable temperature in the air, Kylo wouldn’t have minded spending the day here - with a sketchpad or two, or possibly even some watercolors. “If there’s something on your mind, you know you can just speak it, right?”

“Well,” ‘Taka hesitated. “You know I don’t judge the thing you two got going between you, right? I don’t really understand it, but... you know, I know you’re both consenting adults and all that, so I’m gonna respect it regardless. But, uhm, you and Cal… Does he know? Poe, I mean. Does he know about the two of you? And, Cal… Does he…? Has he...” ‘Taka went silent, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair - a gesture Kylo knew meant he was trying to find the right words. “What I’m saying is; how much drama are we gonna see between Cal and Poe right now? And are you sure you’re up for dealing with it? ‘Cause you’re gonna be in the middle, whether you want to or not.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Running a hand over his face, Kylo groaned in frustration. “I’m starting to really get how straight girls feel. Can you fucking believe that those two already had a fucking dick measuring contest _while standing in my fucking doorway._ Un-fucking-believable. Why I didn’t throw them both out on their asses is beyond me, but yeah.”

“I’m so sorry you have to deal with all of this.” ‘Taka did sound genuinely sorry for him, and Kylo forced himself to shrug.

“Meh. Sooner or later, one of ‘em will ditch - just a matter of waiting to see which one it turns out to be.”

\-----

When they arrived back at Kylo’s house, Millicent had taken up residence on the roof of Mitaka’s car - much to his dismay. As he approached the door on the driver’s side, she growled at him, a paw raised and ready to swipe at him with claws like tiny razor blades. Mitaka, wise from experience, backed away from the car, hands up in a gesture of defeat. Millicent didn’t stop growling, her ears flat and pointing backwards, her bright orange fur standing on end like a warning sign.

“Uhm, Kylo,” Mitaka pleaded, not taking his eyes of the growling, pear-shaped bundle of murder that held his car hostage. He knew better; Millicent was a good hunter, she knew how to take advantage of someone’s loss of focus. “She’s on my car. Help.”

“Just grab her,” Kylo chuckled, as he took the opportunity to quickly inspect his cold frames. “She’s just a cat, what’re you so scared of?”

“Just a cat, he says,” Mitaka grumbled, still not moving an inch. “Do I have to remind you of the time she chased a bear away from the backyard? She’s not a cat, she’s a furry ball of hate and murder.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Kylo sighed, coming over to pick his suddenly very happy and affectionate cat off the roof of the car. “See? You just gotta be firm with her. Make her respect you.”

“She doesn’t respect anyone but you, and you know it.” As he got in the car, Mitaka gave Kylo a steady look. “Aight, I’ll come by same time next week. Might be a bit late, ‘cause Mrs. Tanner is being… well, she’s being Mrs. Tanner. But I’ll let you know. Try to do your exercises, yeah? And, Kylo?”

“Mhm?”

“If Caleb fucks up, let me know. I’m serious.”

“I will. Thanks, buddy.”

\-----

When Hux pulled up outside of Gott’s, there were four trucks nearly identical to his left idling in the lot, keys still in their ignitions and doors unlocked, as always. Tale as old as time. Late Wednesday morning, after the morning catch had been drug in and cleaned and second shift at the processing plant on the outskirts of town had started gearing up, and spring was heavy in the air, a pervasive dampness that no longer burned away entirely as the sun climbed in the sky. He’d switched to contacts years ago, except when he was reading, but Hux well remembered the way his glasses had fogged up during the short jaunt from his dad’s passenger seat to those big double doors out in front of the high school this time of year. Before long, you’d have to make a deal with the devil if you wanted to find a parking spot around here - either at Gott’s or along the cobble-stoned streets farther downtown - and Hux allowed himself a moment to appreciate the relative calm of Bar Harbor before summer’s influx of tourists descended on the little town as he turned down the radio.

He’d already been to the lumber-yard that morning; the bed of his pick-up was loaded down with two-by-fours for Ben’s porch, enough to replace the whole thing, which the guy who’d helped load them up had told him was a good idea, if it was in that bad of shape. Hux hadn’t recognized him at first - stout but muscular, with a forest green polo shirt that pulled around his neck and biceps and read _Mill Stream Lumber Yard_ across the pocket - but as soon as he’d opened his mouth, the molasses slow drawl had been unmistakable. He was talking to Mrs. Taylor’s boy. She’d had to separate him and Ben in tenth grade English, but Ben had loved her class anyway - mostly because she’d encouraged him to keep going whenever he got on one of his tangents about Frost or Dickinson, even when the rest of the class was nodding off - and Hux had clapped a friendly hand on Taylor’s shoulder, wide and solid and with no give, at the sudden pang of familiarity. The loading had gone quickly after that, the two of them trading stories back and forth over shared physical labor while sweat gathered under the back of Hux’ soft-spun cotton tee-shirt.

Hux had Taylor’s number tucked away on the flip side of a receipt in his back pocket before he pulled away, as well as an invitation to join him for a beer after work sometime; now he just had to load up on sunflower seeds and Gatorade before heading out to Eagle Lake. It wasn’t as hot as it would be in a couple weeks’ time, he knew, but Hux would still be sweating like a liar in church laid out on the porch come late afternoon - likely with Ben’s unhelpful commentary offered from his perch in the doorway. His friend, he’d learned, talked a lot of shit for someone who hadn’t done anything more than hand Hux a nail here and there so far, and that only with a good deal of bitching about it.

Not that Hux was complaining; hell, he was pleased as punch just to be there. Nah, he’d happily provide Ben’s favorite flavor of Gatorade - the terrible white one whose bottle just read _Arctic,_ whatever the hell that was supposed to taste like - just to buy his way onto the property, even if he was the one doing all the work.

Did he even have the right to call Ben his friend anymore? Probably not, he decided, throwing open the pick-up door with a lurch and hauling himself out of it, the tight muscles of his lower back protesting the abuse they’d suffered at the lumber-yard. He considered leaving the key in the ignition for a moment, but at the last second decided against it, reaching back up inside the cab to retrieve it and dropping the ring next to the folded up receipt in his pocket. He’d had bad luck with that once when he’d first moved out to L.A., and had spent four hours in a Wendy’s parking lot waiting for a locksmith on a Sunday afternoon. No, it was better not to chance it.

Hux had barely gotten out of the way when a familiar sportscar the color of candied carnival apples whipped into the empty space next to his. It pulled up cockeyed between the faded white lines, its sunroof open and Lynyrd Skynyrd blaring from the rolled down windows, and Hux paused with a hand on the door to Gott’s, brow raised, taking in the scene.

 _Poe._ Unconsciously, his lip curled. There wasn’t anyone else in town with a car that obnoxious, or a flimsy enough sense of self-preservation that they’d leave the top down in spring. That was an invitation to have their leather interior rained on if ever Hux had seen one, and he was proven right as Poe unfolded himself from the seat - all five foot nothing of him. The interior had to be the size of a cracker jack box if even someone like Poe had to fold themselves up to fit inside, Hux thought, and when Poe climbed out to flash him a blinding smile, one that tugged one side of his mouth up higher than the other, he bristled, forcing himself to dredge up a smile in response. It was a little like taking a swallow of salt water when you’d stayed submerged too long without coming up for a breath. Sure, he reflected, palm still pressed to the glass of the door, he didn’t know enough to hate the guy, but that didn’t mean he had to like him.

“Hey.” The greeting didn’t invite any further conversation, Hux’ voice as flat as his smile, but either Poe was too thick to pick up on the hint or too stubborn. Instead, he loitered near the bumper of his car, propping himself up with a hand splayed on the hood and running the other through his still-badly-in-need-of-a-cut hair, leaving it ruffled on top.

“Hey yourself.” The same leather jacket he’d been wearing at Ben’s place was draped around his shoulders, and he was wearing a pair of broken-in sneakers on his feet. Behind his ear, he’d wedged a pen with a cap that had been chewed to hell and back. ”Fancy seeing you here.” More smiling that didn’t reach his eyes, though they crinkled at the edges. Over Poe’s shoulder, a sedan’s tires crunched on gravel as they turned into the lot.

“Gott’s is the only grocery store Bar Harbor,” Hux dead-panned in response. Poe was the picture of forced nonchalance there in the Maine sun, taking up two spots in the parking lot of one of the mainstays of his adolescence, and Hux wasn’t buying it. Poe might have been able to fool Ben, but Ben had once been the more trusting of the two of them. That, it appeared, hadn’t changed - except when it came to Hux. “It would actually be weirder if you _didn’t_ see me here eventually. And let’s not pretend you didn’t know I was headed over your way later today. Kylo tells you everything - you knew I had the porch planned for this afternoon. Hell, I bet you even knew I’d told Be- _Kylo_ I was bringing over snacks. It wasn’t like I was gonna leave town for Gatorade and trail mix.”

That might have been assuming too much forethought on Poe’s part. He probably hadn’t come here with the sole purpose of tracking Hux down. The guy needed to eat too, after all, and Hux had said it himself: Gott’s was the only game in town. Still, he thought, the least Poe could have done was hide out in his sportscar like any self-respecting person would do when faced with their current hook-up’s ex.

“I was just hoping you’d leave town in general.” Poe shrugged, the leather across his shoulders bunching. The easy midwestern lilt to his voice would have made even a threat to deck Hux in the face sound friendly, and his posture remained loose and languid. Had he been a cat, his tail would have been flicking lethargically. Instead, he was just a guy with a pair of Ray-Ban knock-offs hanging from the collar of his shirt left picking at the hem of his jeans. “Didn’t much care about the reason.”

Hux scoffed.

“Hate to disappoint you, but I don’t plan on going anywhere.” He didn’t. He actually relished the disappointment on Poe’s face more than he imagined was healthy, but Hux would worry about that later. “Nah, I think I’m gonna stick around for _quite_ some time. Don’t got anywhere to be till the end of summer, at least.” This time the smile he gave was genuine as he watched Poe’s mouth go tight, sucking in his lower lip with a pop, and Hux moved out of the way when a woman the age his mom would have been passed him on her way out, a paper bag on each hip, all the tension Poe refused to show in the rest of his body collecting in his jaw.

Hux had almost gotten in a fight out here once, after a football game, the floodlights still on over the stadium and the first frost of the year webbing out over the glass storefront, fingers freezing stiff inside his gloves. Football had never mattered to him as much as it had to everyone else in town, but there was something about a bunch of guys in the back of a pickup truck shit-talking his school that didn’t sit right with him. Finn’s older brother had played on that team before he’d graduated, after all - and it wasn’t his fault those assholes hadn’t known how take a loss. Add in a few beers, and Hux probably would have gotten himself trespassed for good if it hadn’t been for Ben’s hand on his arm and the warm cloud of his breath ghosting over Hux’ ear, promising everything he wouldn’t see until spring thaw if he didn’t get a grip and climb back in the passenger seat of Finn’s dad’s car before a pair of blue lights showed up.

He didn’t have that now. Still, he didn’t hold much of a chance at keeping Ben from finding out if he and Poe tussled right out front of Gott’s. Finn might have kept his mouth shut, but god help him if Mitaka got wind of it. Somehow, Hux didn’t think he would be as forgiving.

“That’s right, Poe.” With that knowledge weighing on his mind, he shouldered the door open, letting the cool air from the produce department out while he held Poe’s gaze steady. “You’ve got me for May. June. July. August. Hell, probably September too, if the weather holds. There are enough repairs at Kylo’s house to keep me occupied for _months._ You don’t have to worry about saying goodbye to me just yet.”

Poe finally stepped away from the hood of his car then, hopping over the yellow-painted concrete parking block to join Hux in the doorway. He narrowed his eyes, looking Hux up and down, that same cocky-ass grin curling one side of his mouth.

Poe was, Hux decided, far less attractive than he’d looked that first day in Ben’s doorway.

“What are you doing here anyway?” this guy who had been a stranger just a couple of days ago asked, unconcerned that they were blocking the doorway from both sides, and Hux’ shoulders hunched defensively on instinct, hitching up high enough that they almost touched his ears. “You’ve been gone ten years. Why the hell come back now? Sure, you’re working on the porch, but you didn’t know about that until a couple of days ago. Yeah, you’ve been pretty tight-lipped about what brought you back here in the first place. Ruining Kylo’s life once not enough for you? Just needed to come back for round two?”

The flush that had seemed to be ever present since his return to Bar Harbor was back on Hux’ neck, his hands balled into fists inside the pockets of his windbreaker, just the way they had been the night those assholes from Tremont had called Finn’s brother a washed up, field goal missing son of a bitch - but before Hux could think beyond the throb of blood accompanying his pulse, Poe was running roughshod over whatever opportunity he might have had to defend himself.

“You here to win him back, is that it? You think all of… all of _this_ -” He made a vague motion indicating Hux’ appearance - his breeze tousled, close-cropped hair and chapped lips, the pink blooming on his cheeks and the tip of his nose, his rarely worn windbreaker and cuffed grey jeans - and wrinkled his nose. “Is enough to make him forget what a jack-off piece of work you were and send him crawling back?”

Poe’s upper lip curled just as Hux’ jaw fell open, and he felt his own eyebrows climb onto his forehead in disbelief.

“Jack-off piece of work?” Hux sputtered. He might have deserved what Poe was saying, might even have accepted it had it come from someone else, but he’d be damned before he listened to some guy he’d met half-way through buttoning his fly in Ben’s doorway question his intentions. “Where the hell do you come off-”

“You know what I’ve heard?” Poe interrupted. He was whispering, still loud enough that everyone in the parking lot could hear him, and Hux wasn’t stupid enough that he could miss the woman who’d passed him in the doorway turning her attention away from the grocery bags she was loading into her station wagon to get her earful of local gossip. “I’ve heard you’re not even _gay._ In fact, I’ve heard you’re still married. Is that true?” Hux’ mouth twitched, the words landing like a slap on the flat of his cheek, but he didn’t dare give away more than that. “Does she know you’re here, I wonder? Nailing boards on your ex-boyfriend’s porch? Making plans about what else you’re gonna be nailing by Finn’s July 4th block party?”

Poe let out a breath of air that wasn’t quite a laugh, nostrils flaring. “And how about Kylo? Does _he_ know you went and got yourself a ball and chain just as soon as you were done fucking him? How long did it take? Six months? A whole year? Huh. I might never have had a wife, _Caleb,_ but that sounds like shady business to me.”

“You leave Ben out of this.” Hux’ voice was sharp when he answered, and the goosebumps that prickled on his forearms had nothing to do with the strength of Gott’s old rattling air conditioner. The words were shakier than he intended them, his palm slick against the glass as he planted his feet, preparing to stand his ground.

“Leave _Ben_ out of it?” Poe parroted, squinting at him. “It’s kinda too late for that, isn’t it? Kylo was involved the minute you showed up at his place and decided to snoop inside my car.” Hux had to look away, his cheeks suddenly as warm as the back of his neck. He’d never intended to let Poe throw him off his guard, but here he was, stammering himself into a corner in front of the busy housewives you only saw out before 3pm and retired business people who still got out of bed like their alarm clocks meant something, the only ones who didn’t have somewhere to be at lunchtime in the middle of the workday. “By the way, the next time you feel like pressing your nose up against someone’s driver’s side window, you might wanna blot first. Your skin gets _really_ oily.”

Had there been a convincing argument as to why he’d thought it was a good idea to loiter outside Poe’s car like a common criminal, Hux would have given it. But there wasn’t - he didn’t have one lousy excuse for his behavior that didn’t make him sound like a loser at best and someone on the receiving end of a restraining order at worst, so he buried his nose in the shoulder of his windbreaker, the scent of Phasma’s fabric softener still lingering above the fishy note from the night he’d spent on the water with Finn and Mitaka. The smell of his wife squeezed something he didn’t recognize in his chest - not regret, but something like it, water from a stone the giant didn’t know was cheese all along.

Amid protestations from both of her parents, Phasma had taken his last name, after all.

“Do you really think you know how to satisfy him?” Poe asked, and Hux didn’t know how to answer him, because the question wasn’t one he had anticipated. He wasn’t sure. ”You think you know what he _likes?”_

He had, once. Had known the way Ben’s breath stuttered when his fingers danced along the ridges of his ribcage, where delicate bones floated above a concave stomach that showed no evidence of the way Ben had been able to put away ‘Taka’s mom’s french fries, swiped through ranch dressing. Had been able to find without looking the spot below Ben’s ear where a flick of his tongue had Ben’s groin arching up to meet his, a reedy sound tearing from the hollow of a voice that still cracked. Had played the inside of Ben’s thighs, the crevice inside the fleshy part of his leg, where he could never carve muscle as hard as he tried, as well as he had the organ at the back of his dad’s church.

But they’d been kids then, and Hux had also known the pythagorean theorem, as well as the 43 presidents of the United States in order from first to the present day. That didn’t mean jack shit now, and both he and Poe knew it. What Poe _didn’t_ know, at least not for sure, was that Hux had slept with one guy, and one guy only. And that guy resided in a shitty old house with a porch currently poised for repair on Cleftstone Road.

Hux preferred to keep that a secret for as long as possible.

“I know he _doesn’t_ like guys fighting over him like he’s a piece of meat out in front of the town grocery store,” he countered, satisfied when Poe’s cheeks went dusky enough to rival his own, even against his olive complexion. “These kinds of pissing contests really put him on edge, actually - and since it looks like neither of us is going to go away, I’d say we should probably learn to get along. If not for his sake, then for our own.” Hux gulped around the golf ball he’d swallowed right around the time Poe’s driver side door had opened and he’d popped out looking like he’d been dropped right out of the sky into the middle of coastal Maine just to be a pain in his ass. Whether or not he wanted to admit it, Poe’s words had rattled him. He was right; coming out at thirty wasn’t the same as coming out at sixteen.

Hux was so goddamn repressed he hardly knew his way around his own dick, let alone anyone else’s. Jesus, there were probably teenagers who were more practiced at giving a hand job than he was, and giving head was a distant dream - though he couldn’t remember Ben lodging any complaints in their cheap-ass tent, droplets of condensation that had collected warm and moist along the canvas roof falling on his hair with each time Hux moved inside him.

Not that he _wanted_ the chance to pleasure Ben again, he reminded himself, shaking his head to clear it of the memory, the smell of new plastic, baked warm and pliable in the sun, still in his nostrils. So really, whether he could still get Ben off like he used to didn’t have anything to do with anything, and Hux forced himself not to fidget under Poe’s interrogation.

“I’m assuming,” he said, steadier than he felt, “if you’ve known _Kylo_ for so long, you’re pretty familiar with how pissy he gets about being treated like an object.” Poe didn’t have an answer for that, his gaze flickering to a gum wrapper on the pavement, and Hux heaved a sigh. “I’m not asking for us to be friends, okay? But hey, looks like we’ve got the same grocer, at least - that’s a start. So what do you say?” A quick flick of his tongue over dry lips as they spread into a thin smile, then Hux pressed his shoulder up against the door, opening it the rest of the way and ushering Poe through, all polite formality he would rather have chewed his own arm off than offered. “Let me get the door.”

...it wasn’t until he was standing in line with two oversized bottles of Arctic flavored Gatorade and a package of already shucked sunflower seeds - Poe in front of him, petulantly arranging a six-pack of some new local beer he’d never heard of on the conveyer belt next to a bag of barbecue flavored potato chips - that Hux realized he might have just re-staked his ten year old claim on Ben Solo.

\-----

Poe had been in a shitty mood when he came back from Gott’s, Kylo had been able to tell just from the waý he shut the door to his car. He’d recognize the slamming sound anywhere; Poe had a weird ability to make even a fucking _car door_ sound petulant, so Kylo was at least somewhat prepared when he came stomping around the corner to the backyard, where Kylo was currently making himself comfortable in the bench swing that sat at the very back of his backyard, next to his greenhouse. It, too, should probably have been replaced a decade ago, but as long as it didn’t randomly send him tumbling to the ground, he wasn’t about to spend money on a new one. He’d only just arrived home in time to have a quick shower, and then put up new charms around the edges of his property, after a brief inspection had revealed that some of them had fallen down, or just simply disappeared during the winter. All in all, he had been feeling pretty relaxed and at peace for once - but of course the universe just had to ruin it by sending Poe and his pissy mood along. And with Caleb coming by soon as well, Kylo was, he decided, really _not in the fucking mood for this_.

Luckily, Kylo was nothing if not an expert in crisis aversion when it came to Poe Dameron’s douchebag tendencies, and now they were both curled up as much as they could on the soft cushions in the porch swing, passing a joint between them, watching Millie stalk some poor innocent creature in the undergrowth further away. Kylo was technically not allowed to share his weed with anyone else, since it was for his personal use only, but he knew it worked wonders in making Poe chill the fuck out for a few minutes. Kylo had never really understood the whole hype about smoking the stuff; it had never done much for him, except help boost his other pain meds a bit when shit got too intense - but he’d never liked it much, and definitely never gotten that whole experience that other people were so goddamn lyrical about. It made him a bit dizzy, and that was about it. On rare occasions, it made him hungry - and Hettie always said that that in itself was reason enough for him to use it. Kylo just couldn’t seem to gain any weight, and apparently Hettie considered this some sort of failure on her part.

Poe, on the other hand, had always been pretty damn enthusiastic about any chance to get his hands on the stuff, and Kylo was thankful for it now - because Poe was always his most cheerful, loving, cheesy self when he was high, and Kylo didn’t wanna deal with regular Poe right now. Because regular Poe was saying stuff about Caleb that made Kylo want to defend him, and that made him really fucking uncomfortable.

Why the fuck should, or would, he defend that fucking… that fucking _backstabbing son of a bitch_? He had no reason to at all. None whatsoever.

_So why the fuck did it make him feel so angry when Poe talked shit about him?_

“We should totally get you to Chicago sometime,” Poe said, taking a drag of the joint before offering it to Kylo. “You know, come see the gang. You haven’t been back in all this time. They miss you. Izzy says hi, by the way. Did I tell you she said hi?” Kylo nodded. “She’s gonna have another kid, you know. Same guy. That… Trevor? You know, the mechanic guy? The Texan? Him. I swear she’s been pregnant since you left. Fucking weird. Anyway. You should come over some time.”

Kylo shook his head. Izzy had been a girl in Kylo’s art history class, and she’d been thoroughly convinced he was The One for half a fucking semester, before he’d managed to quite literally shove her into the arms of some random guy at a party. That guy, it turned out, was a super introverted half-Jamaican, half-Korean, boy from Port Arthur, Texas - with a bad stutter and a complete inability to do math, but a damn near super-human talent for playing piano - named Trevor. So he was a mechanic now, huh? Pity. He would have killed the entire classical music sphere if someone had been smart enough to let him loose on a stage. Oh well. What mattered, Kylo supposed, was that he and Izzy had fallen so thoroughly in love it had been damn near embarrassing to witness. But it was good that they were happy. They deserved it, both of them. And, he thought before he could stop himself, it was a good thing that _someone_ was.

“You have to tell her I’m happy for her,” he said. “Not sure about going to Chicago, though, man. Too much of a fucking hassle no matter how you do it. With the wheelchair, and the meds and all that fucking shit. It was bad enough when me and Hettie had to do that trip to New York to see that specialist. They lost my wheelchair. They actually managed to lose a bright red wheelchair, that has a rainbow patch on it the size of a fucking dinner plate.”

“No, really?” Poe seemed absolutely incredulous, and Kylo blamed the weed, because he was pretty sure he’d told Poe about this already. “Did you get it back?”

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough of that now,” Kylo said, reaching over to put the joint out in the ashtray he’d put next to them on the ground. “Yeah, I got it back, you moron. You tripped over it the other day when you went upstairs to get Millie out of my supply boxes.”

“Oh. Oops.”

Kylo just rolled his eyes. Yeah, definitely enough weed for the day.

“Anyway,” he sighed. “Gotta be honest, I’m not really all that keen on the idea. Dunno, call me a sap or whatever, but it’s like that whole town is just… I can’t think about it without thinking about… you know, Snoke, and all of that shit. It’s kinda hard to get past it being… Dunno, the city where my life went to shit. You know? And… well, just the thought of being in the same place as him, I just… Makes me feel sick.”

Poe nodded, and pulled Kylo close, so he could rest his head on Poe’s shoulder.

“That guy’s a fucking creep,” he agreed. “I kinda feel bad for getting you that job, you know. You know I never meant for you get hurt or anythin’, right babe? You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I ain’t mad at you - I needed a job, and you found me one. The hell were you supposed to know what a fucking sleazy asshole he actually was?”

“You wanna know a good thing, though?”

“What?”

“It’s good, baby! I swear, it’s _real_ good - it’s gonna make you smile! Can’t believe I forgot to tell you, I-”

“Poe. Get to the point.”

“Sorry. Right. Let’s just say things aren’t going so well for Mr. Snoke right now. No sir, not at all.”

“Why? What happened?” Kylo raised himself up a little, searching Poe’s face for any clues.

“Some little bird seems to have whispered to the feds about some not so legal stuff his companies were doing behind the scenes. He’s got feds crawling _all over_ his business right now - no one wants to have a fucking thing to do with him, and he’s already been forced to shut some things down. Last I heard, there were rumors of, like, trials and shit. Isn’t that great, baby?” Poe grinned like the fucking Cheshire Cat, looking like a kid showing his parents the test he just aced. “And his wife divorced him, too! It was all over the news before I came here. She’s suing him for half of everything - it’s fucking hilarious, man!”

“With the way he treated her, she fucking deserves it - at the very least,” Kylo muttered as he lay back down. “But I-... You’re serious? He’s actually in that deep of shit? For real?”

“‘m serious! Scout’s honor!”

“You weren’t in the scouts.”

“No. But it’s still true. He’s in so much shit right now, baby doll, he probably can’t even fucking see the surface. Give it a year, and I bet he’ll be in jail. Serves him right. Fucking sleazebag pedophile.”

“Poe, I’ve told you a million times; don’t throw that word around. It’s got a pretty fucking specific meaning - you can’t just apply it to anyone you don’t like.”

“He groped you.”

“Yeah, and I’m not a kid. Wasn’t back then either. I was twenty when I started working for him, remember.” Poe muttered something unintelligible, pulling Kylo even closer, and Kylo let him. “But it does make me feel better to know he’s going down. Thanks.”

“Anything for you, baby.”

Kylo nodded. He knew that Poe’s ‘anything’ didn’t really mean _anything_ , but he let himself pretend. It was so easy to pretend when they were laying like this, cuddled together like they used to do - like back when it had meant something, when Poe had talked about their future together, the penthouse they were gonna share, and how he’d make Kylo breakfast in bed every day, like he really _meant_ it - before reality came knocking. It always did, he’d learned that by now - the hard way. Kylo had learned that lesson so well by now that he’d long since stopped entertaining any notions that his life would ever be better than this. Hopes and dreams were nice enough for the people who could afford them, but Kylo wasn’t one of those people. He was scraped bare when it came to both those things; there was nothing left in his heart to give. He was a decrepit old building that no one wanted to waste time and effort to restore - he had accepted that. But at least when Poe was here, he could pretend. Because pretending, at least, required no hope, no delusions of a brighter future, no dreams or wishful thinking. Poe was his getaway, he supposed, every bit as much as he was Poe’s.

The last thought hit too hard, and he forced himself to abandon it. Luckily, he found a good distraction in the sound of a truck entering the property - the sound of tires against the dirt told him it was heavily loaded, and he knew only one person with an errand here today; Caleb. Hettie refused to come by until Poe had gone, and Kylo respected that. It was easier that way, anyway. It was bad enough that he had to listen to Caleb and Poe’s bitching - Poe and Hettie were like having a fucking thunderstorm in the living room. It had been a fucking blessing that Poe had decided to take a day trip to some hipster brewery somewhere on the mainland yesterday - Kylo didn’t want to even fucking think about what it would have been like to have Caleb try to dismantle his bloody porch while Poe pranced around, commenting on his every move. Because Caleb was still pretty shit at anything that required the use of tools, and was painfully aware of it too - which would have had them at each other’s throats in no time had Poe been there to open his fucking mouth.

He could only hope they’d get through today without anymore of their territorial bullshit, because Kylo was about two words away from beating the shit out of the both of them.

\------

Hux hadn’t started going by his last name until track season his freshman year of college.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision. That year, all the guys on the team were given these grey fleece sweatpants for warming up in, with their last names written lengthwise along the thigh, and the first day out on the track, stretched out on the blacktop with his leg extended in front of him, one of the long-jumpers had yelled it at him from across the field to get his attention.

It had stuck. He preferred being Hux to whoever the hell Caleb had been - that too smart for his own good kid who never knew when to shut up except when it came to telling his dad where to stick it - and by the time he met Phasma, he hadn’t gone by anything else. It had been their fourth date before she’d known his first name at all. Even after they’d married, when she’d shared the name with him, she was more like to call him Hux than Caleb. Some of their friends thought it was funny, teased the two of them about it over the rims of their cocktails when they met for drinks after work, and as Hux studiously ignored Poe’s shout of _“Would you look at that, it’s Caleb!”_ from the bench swing that sat, bolts rusted, in Ben’s yard, he wondered whether it would be more or less weird now that she was abandoning the last name and returning to her own.

The fact that Hux had left the boards that had once made up Ben’s front porch sitting in a pile next to the driveway meant that entrance to and from the house was currently restricted to the back door, so Hux had to walk around the side and right past the swing to find his way inside. There was no pretending he hadn’t heard him, and even less of a chance of pretending he didn’t _see_ him, all wrapped up around Ben like a goddamned octopus, his stumpy little legs not even reaching the end of the seat while Ben’s feet, flip-flops kicked to the ground below, dangled off the edge.

Hux strode over to the two of them to the sound of dragonfly wings beating a thousand beats a minute as they dipped between stalks of Yellow Indian grass. Their wings carried them off in all directions as he approached, Hux offering up an amicable enough smile to the swing’s occupants when Ben raised his head off Poe’s shoulder in greeting. It was more than he’d gotten before, and Hux allowed himself the illusion that Ben was warming up to him.

“Told you I’d be over by noon.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, rocking back on the heels of his leather sandals and letting out a whoosh of air. Grass brushed the soles of his feet, tickling. “I’ve got goodies in the car if you get hungry later. Enough trail mix to keep a couple of hard-working handymen like us going for two days straight - oh, and that Arctic Gatorade you keep sucking down. You don’t like it over ice, right? I can put it in the fridge if you want, but I thought I remembered you liked it kind of luke-warm.”

Hux didn’t ‘think’ anything. He’d memorized the way Ben took everything - from his coffee, any way he could get it, hot or iced, but with two packets of sugar and then a packet of sweet ‘n low for good measure if he had his way, to his french fries, with so much ranch dressing it toed the line of being gross - but Ben didn’t need to know that, and he shrugged like it was no big deal, hands still wedged deep in his pockets, with a ball of lint and a smooth-worn dime he didn’t remember leaving there.

“We’ve got this,” Poe interrupted, pulling Ben’s head back down to rest on his chest again, though Ben didn’t look as comfortable as he had before, when he hadn’t noticed Hux yet. “Look, it’s a nice gesture. We get it. You’ve proven your point - you’re a good guy. So you can take your trail mix and that fancy hammer you bought down at the hardware store and get back in that truck. Take it right back to the place you rented it from, okay?” His face went thoughtful before he continued. “But go ahead and leave the Gatorade if Kylo likes it so much. I can spot you the five dollars to cover it.”

“...you’ve got this?” Hux looked between Poe and the pile of rotten boards that had held Ben’s porch together, an eyebrow climbing into his hairline of its own accord. He didn’t have to know much about Poe to gather he’d probably never swung that hammer he was talking about in his life. “You’re telling me you’re going to put Kylo’s porch back together? _You?_ ”

“Eventually,” Poe said, dismissive. “We’ll get around to it, okay? Sheesh, it’s just a _porch._ It’s not like the place is gonna fall down if we leave it like it is for a few days.” The clouds above shifted, dappling Poe’s face with the sunlight that filtered through the canopy of new growth blossoming on the trees above, and he let his eyes flutter closed, apparently done with the conversation.

Hux, however, was not.

“You do realize the front door isn’t usable right now, right?” he asked, resisting the urge to flick Poe between his closed eyes to get the words through his thick skull. “Kylo’ll break his neck if he tries to go out that way. There’s like a one and a half foot drop. And it’s not like it’s gonna do you any favors either. One of you two is gonna forget there’s nothing there to catch you when you set foot outside that door - and whoosh, you’re in a cast. Six weeks at least. You wanna risk that just because your stupid pride can’t handle seeing me out here with the two of you?”

Poe just hummed in response, his lips buzzing with it, looking pleased with himself as leaf shadows moved across his tanned skin.

“ _Poe_.” Realizing he wasn’t going to get a response out of the person he was addressing, Hux turned his attention to Ben. “Kylo says it’s okay, so just drop it. It’s his house. The sooner you let me get to work, the sooner I’m out of your hair and you can go back to doing… whatever it is you do when I’m not around.”

Poe chose that moment to return to the conversation, though he didn’t go through the trouble of opening his eyes.

“Oh, you know _exactly_ what we do when you’re not around.” His brow wrinkled meaningfully as he half-mumbled the words.

“Very mature,” Hux snorted. He’d kind of invited that one, he supposed. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though, and this time when he breathed through his nose, it was a sigh. “Okay. So if we’re all finished here, I’m just gonna lay out the blueprints that the Taylor kid - you remember him, from English class - drew up for me on that flat piece of ground over by the house. Kylo, you can come take a look if you’re feeling up to it - just in case you wanna see what’s gonna be hanging off the front of your house in a few days.”

“He’s good.”

The answer came from Poe, not Ben - who lifted his head again at that, craning his neck to give Poe a cockeyed look that said _what the hell_ more clearly than any words he’d ever heard, and Hux considered that Poe had better watch what he had to say. He was well within smacking distance for Ben.

“Like I said,” he repeated, slower this time, on the off chance that clearer enunciation might help Poe to understand he didn’t give a _shit_ what he thought and it was only Ben’s opinion he was interested in. “ _Kylo,_ the blueprints are gonna be right over there if you want to come check them out before I get started.”

“Look, _buddy_.” For the first time, the way Poe’s voice dragged over the word turned his midwestern accent into something ugly. “Neither of us wanna see your blueprints, okay? Neither of us wanna eat any of your trail mix or drink any of your goddamn Gatorade or have to look at a porch you installed day in and day out after you finally get your ass outta here the way we’re just waiting for you to do.” He was raising himself up on his forearms now, effectively pinning Ben - who looked he wanted nothing more than to clamor overtop of him - against the back of the swing. Hux’ hands itched to reach over and help him, but he knew better than to think Ben would have accepted it. “Don’t you get it? _We don’t want you here._ ”

“Last time I looked, I was capable of speaking for my own damn self,” Ben snarled as he wrestled himself out of Poe’s grip, no help needed, and without warning, Hux’ heart was trying to find its way out of his chest, climbing up and into his throat and thudding against the roof of his mouth. “I’m not a fucking kid, and I _do_ , actually, wanna see those fucking blueprints, so I know what the hell he’s planning to do to _my_ house.”

Ben was on the defensive now, Hux could see that plain as day. This was the Ben who had once thrown a punch in Hux’ honor, who hadn’t known much about how to fight - Luke was a pacifist, after all, had protested the war in Vietnam and everything - but who would have tried his hand against half the football team had Finn’s older brother not made damn sure they wouldn’t even look at Mitaka the wrong way, and Hux’ knees had a moment where they went to jelly at how _possessive_ he sounded. His voice, it had always been so deceptively soft - and deep, even when they were kids - that the intensity of it at times like these had never stopped coming as a surprise.

Hux shook himself before that soft, deep voice made him do something stupid. He couldn’t let his mind wander down that road. Because that stroke of protectiveness, the not quite growl that said ‘ _mine,’_ that couldn’t have been directed at _him,_ could it have? It was the house that had Ben so agitated, Hux told himself, that was it. Nothing to do with him. ‘ _We don’t want you here_ ,’ that was what Poe had said. As if that wasn’t was clear enough...

Still, a treacherous voice - the one he’d forgotten about, the one that always came out of nowhere where Ben was concerned - whispered, Ben hadn’t agreed, had he? Poe might have said it, but Ben had been notably silent on the subject of whether he wanted Hux around, and bolstered by that knowledge, Hux puffed his chest out under the Aroostook County Brewery tee-shirt Finn had lent him, saying he didn’t give a shit if Hux ruined it with wood glue.  

“See?” He gave a wide smile, all teeth, to Poe, then turned a softer one, just playing at the corners of his mouth, to Ben. “The man has spoken. Kylo wants to have a look. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but we’re just gonna be right over there-”

And then Poe’s hands were on his chest, shoving him back - not hard enough to make him stumble, but almost, and Hux’ words were lost as his teeth clacked together over his tongue, drawing blood. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to tinge his spit with the taste of copper, his stomach tightening and his tongue stinging, already swollen and unwieldy where he’d bitten it.

“You son-of-a-” Visions of wringing Poe’s neck exploded behind his closed eyelids before he forced them open. He’d rarely wanted something so much as he wanted to shove Poe’s teeth right down his throat in that moment. “Seriously? _Seriously?_ You really wanna do this here?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Poe agreed, his legs spread and feet planted like he really thought Hux was about to deck him one, and Hux shook his head, counting to ten in time with the throbbing of his tongue.

“You think this is gonna be a fair fight? You’re like a foot shorter than me, dude.” He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, the spit gathering behind his teeth making him want to drool. “What’s your plan anyway? Kick me in the shins? Hope you can knock me down and run away before I get back up?”

That little dig did just what Hux intended: it got to Poe, and he lunged at Hux, who side-stepped his swing, expecting it. Sure, he wanted a fight - now even more than in the parking lot at Gott’s - but somehow, more than that, he wanted to be allowed back on Ben’s property before his hair started going grey.

“I’ll tell you this right now,” he said, narrowing his eyes, the back of his hand still pressed to his mouth. “I might not look like much, but if we went toe to toe, even if you absolutely wiped the floor with my ass - and that’s a big if - I’d make sure you remembered it first.” The back of his neck was so hot he thought it might slough right off, all the way down to where his tee-shirt was tucked into his jeans. “You think you own Ben - argh, _Kylo_. Whatever. Maybe I get his name wrong sometimes, but at least I treat him like an actual person. That’s gotta count for something.” Frustration made his voice crack, and Hux covered it with a bitter laugh. “Or maybe it doesn’t. Hell, I don’t know. All I know is, _you_ \- Poe whatever-your-last-name-is - are a _dick_ and maybe I’m the only one sees it, but I really don’t think so.”

When their eyes met, Ben still looked pissed as hell, but Hux wasn’t sure if the anger there remained directed at Poe, or if he’d gone too far and done something to deserve it too. Well, he figured after a moment of wondering - watching the scene play out as if he was a bystander, somewhere outside his own body - there was only one way to find out, and he shoved the envelope he’d been pushing right off the edge of the table.

“What do you think, Kylo? You really like this guy?” He jabbed a thumb in Poe’s direction, well aware of how petty he must have looked. “Because I’ll be honest - looking at him kind of makes me want to puke. And that’s no slight to your taste in guys - because when we first met, I didn’t mind looking at him at all, I’ll give him that.”

“I-” Hux had taken him off guard; he must not have been expecting that, and Ben hesitated just long enough that, before he could finish, Poe was cutting him off, his face screwing up like he was the one who’d just chewed into his own tongue.

“You’re a real piece of-”

“A real piece of work?” Hux scoffed. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. “Yeah, I keep hearing that. Seems to be the consensus on me around here. Why don’t you tell me something I don’t already know?” He took a step back - not because he was intimidated, but because he wanted space between them - the heel of his sandal landing in mud still half-squishy, and he frowned. “Whatever, man. It’s up to Be- _Kylo._ It’s up to _Kylo_ if he wants you around. He’s the one that has to look at you, not me.”

It was in the silence that followed that Hux realized he’d been waiting for Ben to say something. He wasn’t sure what it was, but whatever it had been never came. Instead, there was just the sound of Poe grinding his teeth, the drone of dragonfly wings, their owners having migrated back to the shaded area below the tree cover, now that their three intruders had stopped moving.

“It’s okay, Kylo.” Hux hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so defeated, but he’d be damned if it didn’t when he finally opened his mouth again, his shoulders sagging, heavier now than when he’d pulled onto Cleftstone twenty minutes before. “I’ll save you the trouble of telling me to get the hell out. We’ll do the porch another day - just try not to break your neck before then."

Ben was silent when he turned to go, the words he didn’t say as Hux let himself into his truck and brushed the burrs off the legs of his jeans stinging more than the split on Hux’ tongue.

\-----

“Can you fucking believe that gu- Baby, where you going?” Poe turned around just in time to see Kylo make his way up the stairs to the back porch.

“Shut up,” Kylo snarled as he crossed the worn planks and went inside, shutting the door in Poe’s face. He was tempted to lock it, but he knew it was pointless. That only worked if he could disappear into another room or something - and his ground floor was an open space. It’d look stupid for him to sit down somewhere and pretend he couldn’t see or hear Poe perfectly through the windows. Goddammit. He only made it a few steps into the room before Poe caught up with him, grabbing his shoulder and effectively stopping him from going any further. Snarling, Kylo shoved him away. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Whoa!” Poe stumbled a bit, but caught himself before he tripped on one of Kylo’s many piles of stuff - and then he came right back into Kylo’s space. “The fuck got your panties in a twist? He’s gone now, no need to get pissy with m-”

“ _You_ , Poe. _You_ got my non-existing fucking panties in a twist.”

Poe just stared at him, apparently _not fucking getting it_ , and Kylo wanted to strangle him.

“Oh, come on, baby!” he protested, still looking like he hadn’t done shit wrong. “Don’t be like that!”

“Do. _Not._ Call me ‘baby’.” Kylo turned around so that they were face to face. Poe held his hands up in a defensive gesture, but didn’t back away.

“Whoa. Okay. You’re obviously pissed.” Then a thought seemed to strike him. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re being bitchy ‘cause of _that_?” He made a vague gesture towards the backyard. “Babe, you’ve hated the guy for like, ten years or whatever - don’t tell me you’re suddenly best buddies? Jeez, I’m gone for one day, and he sweeps in and gets your head all twisted up again - I should’ve punched the fu-”

“ _Shut the fuck up!_ ” Kylo was shouting now, something he knew Poe had always hated - because shouting meant drama, and drama meant serious business, and Poe didn’t do serious business - but he just couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. Because there was a whole well of suppressed anger, suppressed feelings, suppressed _things he’d known all along but been too scared to confront before_ that was all erupting inside him right now, and Poe… _Poe fucking had it coming_. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ call me bitchy over this! Don’t you _fucking dare_! I don’t know what the hell that bullshit was you pulled out there, but I am not some fucking _child_! I don’t need _anyone_ to speak for me - least of all you!”

“What, you gonna defend him now, is that it?” Poe was getting angry as well - he’d always hated getting called out on his bullshit. “He doesn’t care about you - don’t you get it? He’s not gonna stay, and you know that too! As soon as he’s done- done scoring his good-guy points working on that porch, he’s gonna be gone. And even if he stayed, you really think he’s gonna be able to take care of you? Huh? You’re not exactly low-maintenance, you know!”

“What. The _fuck_. Did you just say?”

“You really think that prissy asshole is gonna be able to take care of you? You show him you on a bad day, and he’s gonna be gone, Kylo!”

In that moment, Kylo’s anger turned from volcanic eruption to deadly arctic cold as he fixed Poe with a glare that had him shifting uncomfortably in his place.

“Oh, you mean like you did?” Kylo fought to keep his voice under control, but he couldn’t do shit about the venom oozing from his words. “You mean like how you didn’t show up at the hospital for _two weeks_ after they woke me up, and the second time you visited you dumped me? Is that what you’re saying? That he’s gonna do the exact same thing that _you_ did?”

“What, no, I-” Poe ran his hands through his hair, then attempted a disarming smile. “Come on, baby, you know I’m useless with shit like that! I thought it was better for you to, uhm, be with people who can handle you.”

“Handle me? I’m not some rabid fucking dog, Poe!”

“Jeez, chill out, you know I didn’t mean it like that! Jeez, why you always gotta be-... All I’m saying is he’s only gonna hurt you again - and who’s gonna pick up the pieces of you this time if you don’t listen to me? He can’t give you what you need, baby!”

“Oh, shut the fuck up! You don’t get to say shit, Poe! You don’t know jack shit about what I need! I don’t hear a fucking word from you for months on ends, but the second your latest boyfriend dumps your ass, you come knocking on my door. You don’t think I realize why you come here? You really think I’m that stupid, huh? Get your sorry ass off your high fucking horse, ‘cause you’re no better than him!”

“At least I didn’t ditch your sorry ass for ten years to go play house with some chick!"

“You had a new boyfriend within one fucking week after dumping me!” There went his control, and he was shouting again, the anger tinting his vision red - but it was all the same, because Poe was shouting too, his face an ugly red shade, and a vein throbbing in his neck. “ _One week_ , Poe! I was alone in that hospital for twelve fucking weeks! I nearly _died_ , you fucking asshole!”

“I screwed up, okay!” Poe grabbed him by the shoulders, his face so close Kylo could see the blood vessels in his eyes. “I screwed up! What the fuck do you want me to say? That was years ago - why the fuck are you being a bitch about it now? We’re not even talking about me - we’re talking about tha-”

“Get you fucking hands off me!” Kylo shoved him away with such force that he nearly lost his own footing. “Don’t ever call me that again!” And just like that, the rage dissipated - leaving only a bone-deep exhaustion in him. Limping over to the bed, he sank down on the edge of it, burying his face in his hands. “Leave me alone.”

“Oh, come on, baby, don’t be like t-”

“I said ‘leave’. Please. For _once_ , Poe. Please, I need to be alone.”

He could feel the incredulous stare from Poe, then a deep sigh, followed by the sound of Poe pushing the patio door open.

“Okay. You’re still pissy, I get it. I’ll give you your space. It’s cool.”

Only once Kylo had heard the sound of Poe’s car leaving the property did he let himself break down, not moving from his spot until he’d cried himself into a state of complete exhaustion - and then he only moved to lie down and rest. He woke up hours later, to find that it was almost completely dark outside, and that Poe wasn’t back yet. Making his way to the kitchen to grab something to eat, he nearly tripped over the cord to Poe’s flashy new laptop, having to catch himself against the wall to avoid actually falling over. How many times had he told the fucker not to plug the thing into that specific outlet? It had to be in the hundreds by now.

The only thing in his fridge that was easy enough to put together without further exhausting his already dangerously close to depleted energy reserves was a lemon cheesecake Poe had talked him into making the other day. It was starting to taste a bit like refrigerator, but he couldn’t be bothered. It was only one slice left, anyway, so he might as well. He didn’t even like lemon cheesecake - it was Poe’s favourite. Kylo had always preferred raspberry or chocolate. He ate it straight from the springform they’d made it in, leaning against the counter, only half-present in the moment. His entire chest was one big hurt, his stomach in knots as the anxiety crawled around in it like a pit full of snakes, but he couldn’t muster the energy to combat it. Though he refused to allow himself to admit it, he was scared out of his mind.

They had both left now. He didn’t even dare to think about whether either one would come back - and, if only one came back, which one it would be. Which one would leave him again?

Too tired to deal with any of it, Kylo just focused on finishing his cheesecake, then he let a very upset Millie in, took a sleeping pill, and returned to bed. Sleep felt like the better option right now. At least if he was asleep, it didn’t hurt.

\-----

The wiring in his parents’ place - _his_ place now, the house he’d chosen to make into his own, for better or, as was becoming increasingly likely, worse - was thoroughly fucked. That was one of the first things Hux had learned when he’d had the appraiser come out shortly after he’d decided to keep the place. He hadn’t been lying about that part when he’d outlined all the shit tied up in getting things situated with the house that had brought him back here in the first place. Whether he was going to keep it or not, he still had to make sure it was _livable._ The only difference was that now he was trying to make it livable because he, well, actually planned on living there.

He’d have to tell Ben that part eventually - and wouldn’t that be a trip? Hux wasn’t sure he could have messed things up more thoroughly with him had he tried. As it stood, Ben hadn’t kicked him off of his property - but that was only because Hux had escorted _himself_ off of it first. That wasn’t saying much.

It was going on evening now, the streetlights starting to flicker on, one by one, gnats and big, juicy beetles gathering around those that had caught the night’s first shadows and come to life first. Soon the days would be longer, but not yet, and Hux estimated he had about thirty minutes left of usable daylight to get the lightbulb above his fucking front door functioning. The damn thing flickered on and off every time every time he shut the screen door, which wouldn’t have bothered him had the appraiser not been adamant it was dangerous and likely to erupt in a shower of sparks if he left it alone for much longer. The last thing he needed was the old victorian to burn down. He could have been wrong, but he didn’t think that, after his failure to reappear in LA when he’d promised he would, Phasma would welcome him back to the couch he’d occupied in their shared apartment, and he didn’t relish the thought of spending his nights cramming his long legs into the bench seat of his rental pick-up - which he was going to have to see about returning soon anyway.

He hadn’t been to see Ben since what he was now referring to as _‘the incident’_ in his mind. That had been about 24 hours ago, and since then, Hux had tried to turn his attentions away from the flutter in his chest when Ben had almost-not-quite defended him and the subsequent way his ribcage had caved in on itself when he’d stopped short of actually doing it, to something he _could_ control - and that something was getting started on the repairs _here_. Already today he’d cleaned out the gutters of a good six years’ worth of accumulated dead leaves and water-logged, spongy sticks, as well as one family of frogs that had been particularly unhappy to see him. Then, he’d pulled down those in such a state of disrepair that attempting to right them would have been a lost cause and piled them up next to the trash cans in the driveway for the garbage men to pick up when they made their rounds. He hadn’t started installing the new ones yet, but they were laid out on the porch, ready and waiting for the morning.

Apparently, a potent need for distraction was good for a man’s motivation.

The light above the front door was the last task on his list for the evening, and he was balancing on the third rung of the ladder he’d borrowed from Finn, holding what he was pretty sure was a live wire in one hand and the bulb he’d unscrewed in the other, his tongue poking out from between his lips as he focused on not electrocuting himself when his name was called from behind him. Not the name he kept hearing here - the one that had followed him from high school and refused to release its hold on him as long as he was in Bar Harbor - but the one he had known for the past ten years.

The ladder Finn had lent him was unsteady, the rubber stopper on one of the legs more worn down than the one on the other, and it wobbled precariously beneath him when Hux swivelled his head around to greet whoever it was had finally gotten his name right.

The sight he was met with nearly brought him crashing down onto the porch.

_“Phasma?”_

She smiled up at him, all short-cropped blonde hair framing a familiar face.

“Hey stranger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We extend our most heartfelt apologies for the almost ridiculously long wait between chapters this time. It looks like it's been since... well, the end of July since our last update, and now here we are, in what is no longer quite the beginning of October. Thank you for sticking with us through the months with no word. Life's been pretty much non-stop - but here were are! Back and - hopefully - just as good as ever.
> 
> In regard to the question of whether the Hettie in this fic is the same Hettie from Loke's other fic, Bloodsoaked Lullabies - the answer is yes - with some minor adjustments to account for the setting of this fic, of course. Nice spotting there!
> 
> The two of us hope you enjoy this extra long chapter and that it makes up for your wait at least a little. Comments and questions can be still directed to the same old places, over on tumblr with Loke at ficlet-machine and Cole at thegoodlannister.


	6. Demolition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for this chapter include: emetophobia and depictions of binge drinking/self-harming behavior.

It was barely even light outside when Kylo woke up, and knew - even before he opened his eyes - that Poe was gone. The house was cold, the way it always was in the mornings when he was the only one in it - his thin, worn body not generating nearly enough heat to fill the open space, or combat the shitty insulation. It was quiet, way too quiet. Poe was _never_ quiet -  even when he slept, there was always a noise of some sort - a sigh, a grunt, occasionally muttered words, or really annoying little giggles. And he thrashed about a lot too - even if he’d _been_ quiet for once, there would still have been the sounds of him moving around. The fact that Kylo was alone in the bed was normal - back then, before everything went to shit, Poe always slept on the couch, or went back to his place after one of their fights, saying it was better that way, to let Kylo sleep his bitchiness off alone rather than wake up castrated.

Managing to turn around, Kylo surveyed the room. Not a single thing belonging to Poe to be seen anywhere. Not even a sock left behind in some corner.

_Poe was gone. Again_.

Kylo wasn’t sure what hurt the most; the fact that he wasn’t surprised, or the fact that he wished - like every fucking time - that _this_ could’ve been the time Poe surprised them both by being a goddamn adult for once. This could’ve been the time he stayed so they could talk it out. This could’ve been the time they made it, or broke it off completely. He could handle them… not breaking up, because there wasn’t even a relationship to break up anymore - hadn’t been for years. But ending this, _whatever it was_ , for good. Then, at least, Kylo would be able to handle Poe, would be able to set boundaries, to protect himself. As it stood, he was defenseless, and they both knew it. He would let Poe back in, because the thought of all the years and decades of being alone, ugly, and unwanted scared him so absolutely shitless that he’d rather take the crumbles offered from Poe’s table - would rather play pretend and allow himself to be used like this - because he was so tired of being so alone.

And now, he thought to himself, he was exactly that. _Alone_.

Caleb had left yesterday. Hadn’t given him a chance to say anything to stop him - not that he even knew what that would have been, what the fuck he could’ve said to save that clusterfuck of a situation - and left. Sure, he’d said he’d be back to finish the porch, but Caleb had left once before, and hadn’t come back for ten years. Why the fuck would he come back now? For all he knew, Poe might still be around, and things might get even uglier. The old Caleb hadn’t backed down from a fight even when he should - but the old Caleb had also called Kylo _‘mine’_ once, when he thought Kylo had been asleep, had said it with so much emotion in his voice Kylo had had to hold back tears… and then broke his heart. The old Caleb had left. Kylo couldn’t think of any reason why the new one wouldn’t do the same. After all, Kylo had even less to offer him now. He wasn’t even nice to look at anymore.

And Poe was gone - for how long this time would remain to be seen. It could be three months, it could be a year; he never knew. Maybe this time would actually be the time he didn’t come back. Maybe the things Kylo had said last night were too serious for him. Maybe he would add Kylo to the growing list of things that weren’t fun, and become just another contact in Kylo’s phone that he let sit there, year after year, so the contact list would look at least a little less pathetic.

His own parents, sorted under their first names, because he’d never been allowed to call them mom and dad (and the older he got the less they felt like it, anyway),  were only still in the fucking list in case something happened and they couldn’t get ahold of Luke. Luke, who was somewhere in India - Kerala, if he remembered correctly - playing guru, shagging his way through his groups of admirers, and who hadn’t been back to Bar Harbor in four years. Luke, who called Kylo up on Skype at weird times, to bitch about new ‘cures’ for his ‘issues,’ or try to get him to just drop everything and come hang out in India. And that would only work until Luke realized there _was_ no fucking herbal teas, or guided meditations, or visualizations or any other bullshit in the world that could take the pain away or make Kylo not a cripple.

No, Kylo was alone. They all left him. He should have learned that by now. They _always_ left him.

The thought hurt enough to wring a sob out of him, then another, and then the tears came, and Kylo crawled his way out of bed as best he could - body one big flare of pain, stiff, uncoordinated, and heavy - making his way to his hall closet. Ignoring the weed hung to dry next to the plants he kept there, only making sure he didn’t tear it down or tip them over in his clumsy state, he went straight for his stash of Jack. There was only one bottle left, and he opened it right there, sitting on the floor, and took a deep swig of it. He had to have more somewhere, he knew it - no way in hell had he already emptied all the bottles he had - he just needed this to boost himself enough to go looking.

It was a stupid thing to do. He was running on an empty stomach, only a third of a glass of water and his pain meds there to meet the booze when he swallowed, and he didn’t even know where his phone was if something went to shit. Hettie didn’t know Poe was gone, and Finn and ‘Taka knew he didn’t always answer his phone to begin with, so they wouldn’t think anything was off. He was on his own in this too, and it suited him just fine. Because right now he didn’t give two shits about bad reactions between morphine based medications and strong alcohol, or about tripping over something and breaking his neck, or about drowning in his own puke - or whatever else people were so goddamn eager to lecture him about. Right now, Kylo was one big open wound, and he wasn’t about to deal with that sober. He wasn’t about to deal with that _at all_ , if he could help it. The sooner he drank himself unconscious, the better. No pain - in body _or_ heart - no stupid thoughts, no fears. Just some goddamn peace and quiet for once in his fucking life. He was too tired for all of this. He needed to _not do this_ for a while, and nothing helped him with that faster or better than trusty old Jack.

When he finally found a few more bottles - another bottle of Jack, that had a little less than half left, a bottle of some cheap-ass vodka, that was disgusting but strong, and six bottles of beer that Poe had bought, and then not drunk because they were ‘too dark’ - his living room looked like a bomb had gone off in there, as did his kitchen. Millie, who had been sleeping on his pillow, abandoned ship as soon as the chaos began. She’d come back when things had settled - she always did.

By the time noon rolled by, Kylo couldn’t even see straight.

\------

“So this is it, huh?”

Twelve hours after her surprise appearance had nearly caused him to take a tumble off a ladder that would broken his neck, Phasma was standing in the middle of the street, head tipped back as she took in the brick-faced buildings that looked out over the water. Salt had long-since worn away at their red finish, leaving the storefronts a washed out-looking burnt orange that someone who wanted to sound poetic might have called ‘rust.’ Hux preferred simply ‘old,’ and he smiled and shook his head at Phasma from his place on the sidewalk, where he’d given up and sank down to plant himself on the curb after it had become clear she was going to take her sweet time pacing from one end of the block to the other, investigating Bar Harbor’s Main Street.

She would have been holding up traffic had there been any. Phasma cut an imposing figure, even dressed down and sporting a pair of pale pink Converse that kept her merely eye-level with Hux, unlike the heels she insisted on wearing to the hospital - sensible and sturdy enough to keep her sure-footed, but feminine and high enough that he often found himself looking up at her. Hux had always liked her like this best, jean jacket left open to reveal a creme-colored camisole underneath, with just the barest hint of lace around the bodice-line. Bar Harbor looked good on her, he thought, though he knew better than to say it.

“Yup, this is it,” he agreed, for the third time, watching her spin to face Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, which was nestled up against a shop whose darkened windows said it hadn’t yet opened for the summer - one that sold mostly rock-climbing gear, in addition to some designer camping goods, like those tin mugs for making coffee over a campfire that had been stamped with faux-inspirational sayings like _“Adventure Awaits,”_ and _“The trail starts here.”_

He squinted into the sun, putting his hand up to shield his eyes like a visor. Then, just because he didn’t have anything else to say, he shrugged and asked, “You hungry?”

It was a trick question. Phasma was always hungry, and if they were eating, he’d be spared his own painful attempts at making conversation. Not that Phasma was doing much better. You could only ask _“so this is it?”_ so many times before it became obvious you were reaching, and her face looked visibly relieved when when she turned her attention back to him, cheeks flushed from the sun and the breeze off the water.  

“I could eat.”

“Good.” Hux breathed a sigh of relief, the pavement scraping rough against his palms when he hauled himself up. “There’s a place right around the corner here. Great french fries. You’re gonna _love_ it.”

\-----

Phasma was a woman who appreciated a good order of french fries - maybe that was why they’d gotten along so well in the first place, Hux considered as he looked across the counter at her, perched on one of two stools he’d pulled up next to the bar that separated the dining room from the open kitchen at _Galyn’s_. She’d went straight for the cheese-covered ones, per his suggestion, though it was a technically still breakfast time. Mitaka’s parents hadn’t been picky about stuff like that when they’d created their menu. Sometimes a man just wanted an order of french fries and that was that, the hour be damned.

Phasma was quiet as she swirled her straw through the milkshake she’d ordered to accompany her fries, drawing patterns through its black and white flecks. That had been Hux’ suggestion as well. It was made with real Oreos, put through a grinder in the back of the kitchen by Mitaka’s dad himself every night after closing, and blended straight with ice cream they had carted in weekly from some place in Brunswick. Something like that was guaranteed to put you in a good mood, even if you had to drink it sitting across from your soon to be ex-husband after his mysterious disappearance to a town he’d done nothing but talk shit about for six years, and Hux needed all the help he could get.

“It’s a good milkshake, right?” he asked, indicating the frosted glass. His stomach had been too bunched up for him to order one of his own, so he had only a napkin in front of him on the counter, one that he was currently making good work of turning into a paper snowflake.

Phasma raised her eyebrows at him, but Hux knew there was no way she could do anything but agree.

“Very.” She took a delicate sip through the bend in the straw, then licked her lips. “So is this why you didn’t come home? The milkshake? Because we have ice cream shops back in L.A., you know.”

Hux flinched. He deserved that. Had been waiting for it to come, eventually.

“No, Phasma, I-” But Phasma held up her hand, biting her lip.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, silencing him before his explanation even got off the ground. Her voice sounded thick, but Hux couldn’t be sure if it was just because of the milkshake. “I shouldn’t have said that. This is your choice. We’re not really even married anymore - it’s all just paperwork now, isn’t it? I don’t have any say in where you come back to or don’t.” She smiled at him - a sad smile that didn’t reach her eyes - and rapped her knuckles on the counter, just once. “Let’s pretend I didn’t say that, okay?”

“Okay,” Hux found himself saying. He hadn’t expected how much it would sting to see her hurting. Hadn’t really expected that she’d allow him to see it at all, if he was honest with himself. He was at a loss. Should he put a hand on her arm? Once, that was what he would have done. Would have wrapped his fingers around her elbow and leaned in for a sweep of his lips over her cheek or, if things were especially bad, the place she didn’t realize her brow creased when she was upset. Those were the kinds of things only he knew. She was so stoic, so careful to hide those tells close to her breast, that it would take her a long time to find someone else who knew them the way he did, if she ever did at all, and his heart thudded with a strange sort of guilt, though he’d never lied to her - not knowingly at least.

“I didn’t come up here with plans to stay,” he offered, because it felt important for her to know that part at least. “You know that, right?” She nodded, her lower lip looking wobbly in a way he was unfamiliar with. It hadn’t done that even the night she’d told him he didn’t want to be married to her anymore, and Hux wondered for a moment if she was going to cry, then dismissed the thought just as quickly. She’d never do it here, where the college-aged boy Mitaka’s mom must have hired to sling fries could look on from the kitchen. “I’d have told you if I had.”

She sniffed once, and just like that, the wobble was gone from her lip, her eyes dry and steady as she crumpled a napkin between her fingers to dab at the corner of her mouth, where a spot of white from the milkshake had been left behind.

“I know.” Phasma gave him that same, pained smile again, and Hux returned it. He would have looked away, but it didn’t seem fair, as he was the one doing the heart-breaking in this situation. “That’s the worst part. You never meant any of it. You were never out to hurt me. It all just sort of happened and then-”

When Phasma looked at him, her eyes were very, very blue. He wondered why he’d never noticed before.

“You know what my mom said to me when I told her I was going to marry you?” she asked. “She told me I’d always been dumb for a doctor. I didn’t know what she was talking about then, but I guess I should have.” Another swish of her straw around her milkshake, and Phasma took another sip, longer this time, then offered some to Hux, whose stomach protested the thought even more now than it had when they’d ordered. He waved it away. “I don’t blame you, Hux. God, it’s not like anybody _wants_ to waste six years trying to avoid an impending gay panic-”

“Thanks,” Hux said glumly, and Phasma swatted his arm, chuckling, her throat sounding not even a little thick this time.

“You know what I mean. I don’t hold it against you. I just-” She swallowed hard. “I probably shouldn’t have come here, not without telling you first, at least, but I just… I had to see for myself, I guess. Had to _know_. Why here? What is it about this place? What is it this place has over you that L.A. doesn’t?” The words _‘that I don’t’_ went unspoken, and Hux chose to let them linger there, bobbing just below the surface of their conversation. “You know, I think your head has always been stuck in Maine, all these years. Now that I really look at it, I’m not sure you ever truly left, and I… I want to understand, Hux. I want to understand, but I don’t. I don’t get it.”

“Do you want me to show you?” Hux nearly clamped his hand over his own mouth, his face the only one that could have looked more surprised at the suggestion than Phasma’s.

_“What?”_

“No, really-” The need for Phasma to agree was suddenly very pressing. He might have lost his damned mind. Might have said the words out loud before he’d fully considered their meaning - but even so, now, standing on the other side of them, Hux knew he didn’t regret the offer.  “I can… I can show you around, if you want. My high school, all the places we used to go hiking, the dock where Finn liked to dangle his feet in the water when he fished. He always said that was the best spot. I can show you, if you want. If you really want to see. Then maybe… maybe then you can understand.”

Phasma didn’t answer right away. She first took her time peeling some cheese off of a french fry, then popped the layer of melted pre-packaged cheddar into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Finally, she gave a little shrug.

“What else am I going to do?” Her tongue poked out to lick the grease from her thumb and forefinger. “I’m in _Bar Harbor.”_

\-----

Six hours later, they ended up back where they had started, outside a little tchotchke shop on the other side of Main, soaked to the bone. The sky had opened up when they were out at the field hockey pitch, a good thirty yards away from the truck and with no real cover in sight. It had been threatening all afternoon, clouds moving in and thunder rumbling in the distance, but Hux had ignored it. That was until the wind picked up and he felt the first drop of rain on the back of his head while he was dangling his legs off the side of the bleachers, telling Phasma about the first time Finn had kicked all their asses in practice and the coach had made the whole track team run an extra half mile to make up for their shitty display.

What had been a single drop of rain became a deluge in the time it took for Phasma to hike her jean jacket up over her head to protect her hair, and there’d been nowhere to hide as the grey expanse above broke open in earnest, sending Phasma shrieking and diving for the cover of the bleachers. Hux had pulled her in and they’d huddled there, Hux watching rain drip off Phasma’s nose, for a good twenty minutes, his shirt so sodden it clung to his back, the skin underneath clammy and goose-pimpled as the afternoon temperature plummeted.

It had been Phasma who’d started laughing first - one moment she was just staring at Hux through the haze of the rain rising off the grass, the only sound the roll of thunder from the next county over, and the next she was laughing her damned ass off, her face crinkling up like she’d just seen the funniest thing in the world, and that was all it had taken for Hux to join her. He didn’t know what the joke was, but it must have been a good one, and the two of them had laughed until their sides ached, there under the bleachers where he and Ben had whiled away an entire adolescence of springtime afternoons. When they’d finally caught their breath enough to stop wheezing, they were good and soaked, so they’d given up and made a run for the truck, mud and grass squelching beneath their sneakers the whole way.

For a moment, they’d been a couple of kids caught away from home too late, and Hux had been able to imagine what Phasma must have been like as a girl, hair wild and knees scraped raw under cut-off jean shorts. The way she looked at him, he thought she could see it too: the boy he had been growing up here, pedaling his bike until he got it going quick enough that he could take his feet off the pedals and balance them one in front of another on the frame, speeding around town like a strawberry-haired spectre. Now, however, an hour and a lifetime later, the sun was peeking out again from behind the cloud cover, humidity starting to creep back in once the rain had cleared, and the spell was broken as he held the door open for her. The bell above it tinkled with their entry, as inside, the returning heat of the afternoon melted away into a place where it smelled like old wood and new plastic.

It was one of the newer shops in town. Hux didn’t recognize the sign outside, nor did he recognize the man behind the counter who smiled at Phasma when she shook her head, spraying water like a wet dog, but somewhere between the Bar Harbor High parking lot and the route he’d taken to and from school, Phasma had mentioned wanting a souvenir from her excursion to Maine, and this seemed like as good a place as any to find one. All the gift shops around here carried the same stuff anyway - snow globes with beach scenes encased in glass, frozen in time, polished shells that didn’t come from this beach at all but that were shipped in on trucks, stock paintings of water birds and suns setting over the dock. The list of things tourists had no use for but they’d pack into their cars to take home all the same went on and on - and this shop was no different.

Phasma was immediately drawn to a jewellry case at the front of the store. Any gift shop worth its salt had one - they were ordered at trade shows and filled with rings and bracelets that were made to look like they had been sourced locally but were stamped out by the dozen, and Hux rolled his eyes as she peered into the glass.

“Don’t waste your time, Phas,” he said, walking up behind her, his hand going to rest on her waist out of habit. He drew it back as if burned. “Nothing in there’s worth even half of what they’re selling it for. These places prey on tourists who don’t know mass-produced jewelry when they see it.”

“Oh shush.” Ignorant of his faux-paux, she waved a hand at him without looking up. “I _am_ a tourist, and I can look at look at all the tacky jewelry I want.”

“Have it your way.” Hux shrugged. “But don’t blame me when your finger turns green if you take one of those things home.”

When he joined Phasma in investigating the contents of the case, Hux was proven right; he’d seen their assortment of cubic zirconium in a dozen shops like this one, and he heaved a sigh as Phasma pointed out a sterling silver necklace that he had to admit set off her eyes. She asked for it to be taken out of the case, and while the shopkeeper held it up around her neck, Hux moved to the far end of the display, muttering about Phasma’s questionable taste until something propped up on a satin cushion caught his attention.

It was a ring - a little big for his taste, but not so oversized it was gaudy. Clearly sterling silver the whole way through, rather than plated like most of the other pieces in the case, with a wide band that had been inlaid with pieces of what Hux thought he recognized as moonstone. A far cry from the usual fare of these shops, the band itself was engraved with a pattern of thin lines made to look like the crude outline of an evergreen tree - a pine, or maybe a spruce. Not a one of the lines was perfectly straight, nor was a one of them identical to any of the others; instead, they molded themselves to the swirls and folds in the metal, where it had been worked when the ring was cast. It took a craftsman to do something like this, Hux thought, his gaze hesitating just long enough for the shopkeeper to catch him looking.

“He’s a local artist,” the man explained, though Hux hadn’t asked. “Kind of an eccentric guy. Lived here his whole life, but you don’t really see him around much. He’s out on the outskirts of town, I think - right on the edge of the National Forest - but every once in a while he’ll come in here with something new. He’ll even talk about it a little if you catch him in the right mood. Does everything himself - the metal casts, the inlay work, the engraving, all of it. There’s not a thing on that ring that’s been outsourced.” A key dangled from a cord around his wrist, and he used it to unlock the case, then reached inside, taking the ring in the palm of his hand. “It’s damned impressive, if you ask me. Days of work, each one of them.”

He was placing it on Hux’ finger before Hux could draw his hand back, and Hux was surprised to find that despite the width of the band and the overall size of the ring, it fit like a glove, slipping as easily over the widest part of his knuckle as if it had been made for him. He flexed his hand, testing the weight of it.

“Nope, you won’t find another one like it anywhere. The fact that they take him so long means he only makes a couple dozen pieces a year. Men’s pieces like this are especially hard to come by, and they never last for long.”

Admiring the ring, Hux nodded. Sure, the shopkeeper was playing him like a fiddle, but already he was regretting that he was going to have to take it off all the same. However well the ring fit, it just wasn’t the kind of thing a doctor wore. And what would he even do with it anyway? The only jewellry he’d ever worn was the wedding ring he’d given back to Phasma - that, and an old crucifix that had been a confirmation gift. It was still rattling around at the bottom of his duffel, where he’d stuffed it as soon as he’d been far enough away from his dad to stop feeling his eyes on him.

“I’m sure they don’t,” he murmured, twisting the cool metal of the band around his finger until the letters _K.R._ were exposed on the underside of the ring _._ Probably the artist’s signature, he thought, wondering distantly what the initials stood for. “But I just don’t think there’s any way I can-”

“He’ll take it,” Phasma interrupted. She flashed him a smile, and then she was fishing out her wallet. “Don’t bother wrapping it up. He’ll wear it on the way out.” When Hux met her smile with a confused wrinkling of his forehead, she cut off any protest he would have made with a shrug and continued digging for her credit card.

“What?” she said, feigning innocence. “I could tell you wanted it.” After of a moment of deliberation, she took the necklace from around her neck and set it on the counter. “You know what? On second thought, we’ll take this too.”

\-----

The bad side about going on a bender had to be the fact that every fucking drop you drank would eventually need to come back out. And getting to the bathroom before you piss yourself is easier said than done if you’re too drunk to tell a tourist from a moose - and when you’re also a fucking cripple, whose fucking legs don’t fucking work properly even on a good day… Well. He’d made it in time so far, and he hoped he’d keep doing that. With his piece of shit excuse for luck, someone _would_ come and find him if he did manage to piss himself. It had happened, before, when he was still stuck in the wheelchair full-time, and a couple of times after - until Hettie had dragged him to some group therapy shit to talk about ‘his drinking habits.’ It had been him and a dozen old army vets and some other… whatever they were, and he hadn’t gone back after the third session when they’d shared stories about their wives and kids. He couldn’t stand hearing them whine, because… Jesus Christ, at least they _had_ someone! And he sure as fuck hadn’t appreciated the way a few of them just couldn’t stop being homophobic assbags either. No, thanks. He’d rather deal with his shit on his own. It wasn’t as if he was like them, anyway. He wasn’t spending his days getting shitfaced like they did. Sure, he drank, but not so much that he couldn’t work, or behave like a person when he needed to! He just needed that extra help to deal with his pain and stuff.

But now, he made it out of the bathroom - slowly, and by leaning heavily on the wall to keep upright - and made it to the armchair by the fireplace. It was really cold inside, and there had been one hell of a downpour a little while ago - loud enough to wake him up from where he’d passed out on the floor by the couch. Glaring at the empty fireplace, Kylo curled up into a ball in the armchair. He was way too drunk to try and light a fire right now. And too drunk to make it across the room to where he was pretty sure the good blanket was. Fucking great.

Grabbing the nearest, strategically placed bottle - the vodka, which was really fucking gross when you’d gotten half a bottle in - he took a deep swig. He wanted to pass out as quickly as he could again. If he didn’t, he’d be puking his guts out any moment now. He knew his body, and he knew how long and how much it took, and right now, he just really didn’t want another fucking type of misery to deal with. There was already some cold sweat breaking out, and he felt the waves, the tightening feeling in his gut, and he was determined not to get sick like some stupid teenager at his first party. Even back in Chicago, when he’d really gone into the whole drinking thing, he’d worked up his tolerance in record time, and it hadn’t taken long for him to get quite the rep for it. It took _a lot_ of booze before he went down, and even then he’d managed not to be that guy who puked all over himself or someone else’s shoes more than a couple of times. The hangover would be fucking epic - it always was - but it wasn’t as if anyone would be here to see it. Even Millie wouldn’t come back inside until at least the day after tomorrow. Some website he’d seen had said it was probably because he smelled wrong to her, and Kylo went with that, because that was sure as fuck more comforting than the thought of his princess being scared of him. He could take a lot of shit, but not that.

When he’d found his phone earlier - by tripping over himself and sending a pile of books and sketches flying - he’d had a whole bunch of missed calls, but he couldn’t see straight enough to make out who they were from. Hettie, probably. Poe wouldn’t call; the only time he ever did was when he was visiting, and needed to check which specific brand of beer or chips, or fucking… fucking _Gatorade_ Kylo wanted. He never even called when he was about to come up north. Okay, he did call sometimes, but only to talk about… well, _himself_. It definitely wasn’t Caleb, because Kylo hadn’t given him his number, and Caleb hadn’t asked - he probably assumed Kylo never left his house anyway. Fucking ableist shithead. It could be Finn or ‘Taka, but he really hoped not, because when they got worried enough they came over, and Kylo just couldn’t stand the way they looked at him when he was like this.

Finn always looked… sad and scared, like a kicked puppy - tears gathering in his eyes, voice shaking, and he fled the scene like Millie on a kill streak, and then Kylo had to go round his house and apologize for whatever it was he’d said this time. ‘Taka just looked at him with… Yeah, ‘Taka would probably label it ‘compassion’ or some bullshit like that, but Kylo knew pity when he saw it, and ‘Taka had a face that was perfect for it. He didn’t flee, no. He helped Kylo up, got him into clean clothes, got him water and something light to eat - didn’t flinch even with all the vile shit Kylo spat at him. Just reminded him that he was- that ’he was loved’, that ’he wasn’t alone’, that ’he could talk to ‘Taka anytime about anything’. There were groups, and programs, and clinics, and all Kylo needed to do was say the word, and ‘Taka would help him out with that. It was real nice of him, and it was probably exactly what he was supposed to do as a friend, but God! Kylo _hated_ it.

Kylo didn’t need any more fucking groups! Didn’t need more doctors and shrinks digging around in his head. Didn’t need another 12-step program full of born again Christians asking him if he’d found Jesus yet, or mindfulness groups full of middle-aged ladies nagging him to embrace his Goddess aspect, and lecturing him endlessly about toxic masculinity and the value of embracing your vulnerable side. He’d had enough of that already - it’s not like they’d helped much, anyway. All he needed was to not be in pain, and not be alone! _Why_ was that so fucking hard for people to fucking understand?

And there came the tears again. Great. So now he had to be drunk, nauseous, _and_ crying like a baby. Well, at least being alone worked in his favor this time, because no way in hell would he be okay with anyone witnessing this.

“Fuck you,” he slurred to himself as he took another swig. “Fuck all of you.”

\-----

You were probably supposed to feel something on the day your divorce was finalized, Hux thought. Sadness or loss or maybe regret. Anger, even - but Hux had done all of his grieving over his failure of a marriage months before, in the hours spent staring into the darkness on the couch in his office. Phasma was right when she said it was all paperwork now, so maybe that was why he’d felt only a vague sense of relief when she pulled the envelope containing the divorce papers from her purse and asked him how he felt about being done with this thing for once and for all. Maybe there was an allotment of emotions you were allowed to have regarding any one event, and Hux had already used all of his up.

The two of them concluded their tour of Bar Harbor with a visit to _Chapman & Sons - _ which, with the problem of the house out of the picture, was short and sweet - and just like that, Hux was a single man again. Afterward, they’d toasted the dissolution of their marriage back at _Galyn’s_ over cold beers, cans slick with condensation under their fingers, Phasma tipsy and smiling in the corner booth and Hux’ touches freer now that they could forget about being husband and wife and get back to being Phasma and Hux. She’d drank more than he had, putting away enough beer that when Hux insisted on picking up their tab, it was north of $25 - not an easy feat at _Galyn’s -_ and he’d driven her home when closing time came, engine rumbling under the floorboards of his big red Ram.

He dropped Phasma off outside the door to her room at the Belle Isle Hotel - one of those quaint, single-story beach motels that still advertised air conditioning and cable television on the sign. The in-ground pool that remained closed and tarped in the center of the parking lot signaled that it wasn’t quite summer yet as he pressed his lips to her cheek before she turned to go inside - and after, he found himself driving right past the stop sign at his parents’ place to rattle aimlessly through the streets of Bar Harbor. There was no reason for him to avoid going home - the power was on now and he’d remembered to crank the heat when he’d stopped there with Phasma after reading that a cool front was supposed to be moving in this evening. He should just head back and sleep off his slight buzz, he knew. Wake up early in the morning and get back to work on the parts of his roof that needed re-shingling, see if Phasma needed a ride back to the airport.

...instead, he ended up parked out at the end of Cleftstone, arms folded on the steering wheel as his windshield wipers intermittently brushed away the mist that was just beginning to settle. The street was completely deserted this far down except for his truck, and inside Ben’s house, it was quiet and dark as far as he could tell. The poor guy was probably asleep, at least Hux hoped so. Ben had always been a bad sleeper, except for in the mornings, when he was supposed to be waking up, but dealing with him and Poe might have tired him out.

It was so far from okay for him to even consider trying the doorknob when he thought Ben might not be awake to stop him. No one had to tell Hux that - it was a huge breach of privacy and a terrible idea all the way around, really. But the thing was, Hux and terrible ideas had a history - especially where Ben Solo was concerned - so when the door creaked open at the touch of his hand, he wasn’t as surprised at his own brazenness as he should have been.

The smell inside the house was stale and a little sour - old liquor and dirty laundry left to sit too long, stagnant air trapped by unopened windows, the only light left on a floor lamp over by the fireplace. For a moment, he was near-blind in the dim lighting, but then his eyes adjusted to reveal an armchair sitting next to the lamp and in that armchair, reclined back as far as he could go, Ben.

Ben was still fully dressed in the same rumpled jeans Hux had last seen him in, though he was dead to the world, his head thrown back and his mouth open a little, and Hux wrapped his arms around himself. It was no wonder Ben hadn’t bothered undressing - the air inside was damn near as chilled as the air outside, and if it hadn’t been for the bottle of vodka clutched in his hand, tilting precariously to the side now, as well as the bone-dry Jack Daniel’s bottle lying on the carpet a few feet away, Hux would have wondered how Ben could have slept in here at all. As it was, he didn’t appear bothered by the temperature, his face slack with sleep. Or unconsciousness - Hux didn’t know which, though he figured the latter was more likely.

He’d seen Ben drunk before. Back when they were kids, for all his impressive height, it hadn’t taken much. Once, he’d taken a header right off the side of Finn’s porch and ended up with a bruised tailbone and a stinging ego after only a few swigs of homemade wine they were never supposed to get their hands on in the first place. But this was something else. His old tee-shirt - too big, Hux looked at the way it hung off him and wondered if there had ever been a time it fit - was stained with something that had been spilled down the front, the beginnings of the five o’clock shadow that was the only beard Ben had ever been able to grow prickling on his chin, down over the tattoo that covered one side of his neck. He was drooling, fingers twitching against the side of the vodka bottle he’d made a valiant attempt at emptying along with the Jack.

The floorboards groaned when he made his way across the kitchen into the living room, but Ben didn’t so much as stir. No reaction, just dead silence, and it wasn’t until then that Hux realized something was missing. No, _someone._ Ben was alone. No Poe. Nothing. He looked over his shoulder, from one end of the house to the other. Just where the hell was that prick? Wasn’t he supposed to be staying here? Poe had been quick enough to brag about that fact, but there were no signs of anyone in the house other than its lone occupant, the one who’d drank himself into oblivion, and this place wasn’t big enough that it could hide a sin like that.

Ben made a whimpering sound in his sleep, his fingers twitching again just as the bottle gave up its precarious footing, tipping to the side before Hux dove to snatch it out of Ben’s hands, saving it from emptying itself into his lap. This close up, Hux could smell the alcohol on him. He smelled like he’d been drinking for days, and like he hadn’t showered in that long either, and Hux didn’t have to sniff his shirt to deduce that the brown stain on the front was whiskey that hadn’t made it into his mouth.

A chill came over him that had nothing to do with the dampness in the air as he set the bottle of vodka to the side, out of reach of the chair, stopping to brush a hand over Ben’s forehead. It was clammy, covered in beads of cold sweat, with the fine hairs that had broken loose from his bun clinging to the jagged scar running across it, goosebumps raised where the neck of his shirt had been stretched out, leaving a pale crescent of his chest visible, and Hux hesitated only long enough to chastise himself for hesitating at all before turning to gather the blanket from the couch Ben had evidently last used as a bed.

Ben was going to have a hell of a hangover in the morning, Hux knew that much as he tucked the blanket around his waist, his arm a dead weight when he lifted it, so he replaced the vodka with a glass of lukewarm water straight from the tap and a bottle of over the counter painkillers he found open on the kitchen counter, then set to straightening the living room around him as he slept. There might not have been much he could do to salvage this shitshow of a situation, but he could at least do that.

Before he left, Hux had done the dishes in the sink and run a load of laundry through the washer, then tossed it in the dryer on low, to tumble while Ben slept. Then, he took out the trash, locking the door behind him, the way it hadn’t been when he came in, and returned to his truck - but he left the light over the chair on.

When Ben woke up, Hux didn’t want him to do it alone and in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As has become the standard with this story, we once again ask for your understanding in the length of time between chapter updates. Loke would like you all to know we were busy washing our hair - but in reality, life has just become very full for the two of us. This is the shortest of the chapters thusfar, so this time we don't even have word count to claim as an excuse. But we are still here and we're both happy and grateful that those of you who are reading are too. We think you'll be happy you stuck around for the upcoming chapters, because we're promising some really good stuff in the near future for both Kylo and Caleb. It's about time, don't you think? 
> 
> This chapter is something of an interlude - but it's an important one, we think, and we hope it rings true for you. Please let us know if it does. We want to hear what you think, as always! Find us on tumblr, where Loke is ficlet-machine and Cole is thegoodlannister.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to the second production of Team Redhead (still a collaboration between your fabulous, fun loving coauthors ficlet-machine and thegoodlannister). Did you miss us?
> 
> If you loved Empire, we hope you enjoy what you're about to see here. And if you didn't, well, this story is shaping up to be very different, so maybe it will surprise you. Whether you're a returning reader or someone checking out our work for the very first time, we're glad you're here with us, and hope you're ready to take something of an adventure with Hux and Kylo and the rest of the inhabitants of Bar Harbor.
> 
> Not much has changed this time around - the two of us are still over on tumblr, where you can always reach us with questions and comments, and we'll be posting update announcements there. One chapter per update this time - not two. Though neither ficlet-machine or thegoodlannister has ever visited Maine, we're doing our best to provide you an accurate picture of small town life there - right down to the town of Bar Harbor itself. If we make any missteps along the way, we ask you kindly overlook them in favor of enjoying the overall story.
> 
> From where we're sitting, it looks like that about covers all the bases - so if you're ready, sit back and buckle up because, this time, Kylo and Hux are in for one hell of a ride.


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